The end of it was that he had his way, or she hers, or both theirs. He made no nonsense of adventure or escapade about it, and she was too well used to traveling alone to feel ashamed or alarmed. He led her to the taxi, told the driver that Grinden Hall was their objective and must be found. Then he climbed in with her, and they rode in a dark broken with the fitful lightnings of street-lamps and motors. The taxi glided out M Street. The little shops of Georgetown went sidelong by. The cab turned abruptly to the left and clattered across the old aqueduct bridge. On a broad reach of the Potomac the new-risen moon spread a vast sheet of tin-foil of a crinkled sheen. This was all that was beautiful about the sordid neighborhood, but it was very beautiful, and tender to a strange degree. Once across, the driver stopped and leaned round to call in at the door: "This is Rosslyn. Where do yew-all want to go next?" "Grinden Hall. Ask somebody." "Ask who? They ain't a soul tew be saw." They waited in the dark awhile; then Davidge got out and, seeing a street-car coming down through the hills like a dragon in fiery scales, he stopped it to ask the motorman of Grinden Hall. He knew nothing, but a sleepy passenger said that he reckoned that that was the fancy name of Mr. Sawtell's place, and he shouted the directions: "Yew go raht along this road ovah the caw tracks, and unda a bridge and keep a-goin' up a ridge and ova till yew come to a shawp tu'n to the raht. Big whaht mansion, ain't it?" "I don't know," said Davidge. "I never saw it." "Well, I reckon that's the place. Only 'Hall' I knaow about up heah." The motorman kicked his bell and started off. "Nothing like trying," said Davidge, and clambered in. The taxicab went veering and yawing over an unusually Virginian bad road. After a little they entered a forest. The driver threw on his search-light, and it tore from the darkness pictures of forest eerily green in the glare--old trees slanting out, deep channels blackening into mysterious glades. The car swung sharply to the right and growled up a hill, curving and swirling and threatening to capsize at every moment. The sense of being lost was irresistible. Marie Louise fell to pondering; suddenly she grew afraid to find Grinden Hall. She knew that Polly knew Lady Clifton-Wyatt. They might have met since Polly wrote that letter. Lady Clifton-Wyatt had perhaps--had doubtless--told Polly all about Marie Louise. Polly would probably refuse her shelter. She knew Polly: there was no middle ground between her likes and dislikes; she doted or she hated. She was capable of smothering her friends with affection and of making them ancient enemies in an instant. For her enemies she had no use or tolerance. She let them know her wrath. The car stopped. The driver got down and went forward to a narrow lane opening from the narrow road. There was a sign-board there. He read it by the light of the moon and a few matches. He came back and said: