There was another car going toward the city. Now it passed them, and as often they passed it. It became a contest of wits. Palmer's car lost on the hills, but gained on the long level stretches, which gleamed with a coating of thin ice. “I wish you'd let them get ahead, Palmer. It's silly and it's reckless.” “I told you we'd travel to-night.” He turned a little glance at her. What the deuce was the matter with women, anyhow? Were none of them cheerful any more? Here was Grace as sober as Christine. He felt outraged, defrauded. His light car skidded and struck the big car heavily. On a smooth road perhaps nothing more serious than broken mudguards would have been the result. But on the ice the small car slewed around and slid over the edge of the bank. At the bottom of the declivity it turned over. Grace was flung clear of the wreckage. Howe freed himself and stood erect, with one arm hanging at his side. There was no sound at all from the boy under the tonneau. The big car had stopped. Down the bank plunged a heavy, gorilla-like figure, long arms pushing aside the frozen branches of trees. When he reached the car, O'Hara found Grace sitting unhurt on the ground. In the wreck of the car the lamps had not been extinguished, and by their light he made out Howe, swaying dizzily. “Anybody underneath?” “The chauffeur. He's dead, I think. He doesn't answer.” The other members of O'Hara's party had crawled down the bank by that time. With the aid of a jack, they got the car up. Johnny Rosenfeld lay doubled on his face underneath. When he came to and opened his eyes, Grace almost shrieked with relief. “I'm all right,” said Johnny Rosenfeld. And, when they offered him whiskey: “Away with the fire-water. I am no drinker. I--I--” A spasm of pain twisted his face. “I guess I'll get up.” With his arms he lifted himself to a sitting position, and fell back again. “God!” he said. “I can't move my legs.” CHAPTER XVII By Christmas Day Sidney was back in the hospital, a little wan, but valiantly determined to keep her life to its mark of service. She had a talk with K. the night before she left. Katie was out, and Sidney had put the dining-room in order. K. sat by the table and watched her as she moved about the room. The past few weeks had been very wonderful to him: to help her up and down the stairs, to read to her in the evenings as she lay on the couch in the sewing-room; later, as she improved, to bring small dainties home for her tray, and, having stood over Katie while she cooked them, to bear them in triumph to that upper room--he had not been so happy in years. And now it was over. He drew a long breath. “I hope you don't feel as if you must stay on,” she said anxiously. “Not that we don't want you--you know better than that.” “There is no place else in the whole world that I want to go to,” he said simply.