"This was the situation—she, angry and disbelieving; he, scared and unable to conciliate her—when the twinkle of a light caught his eye and he decided to come down and ask his way. They dropped into a stretch of grass land among fields, with the light shining some way off through a screen of trees. Farther away, just a spark, he saw another light. He told her to wait while he went to inquire, and walked off toward the one that was nearest. "It was Cresset’s Farm. There he had the interview with Mrs. Cresset, telling her he had an auto in order to explain his presence. When he went back he found that Sylvia had disappeared. At first he didn’t know what to do, realizing that if the story of their flight got abroad, there would be the devil to pay. He was certain she had disbelieved him and had taken the opportunity to get away from him. She was either hiding or had gone for the second light. This being the most plausible, he walked toward it—quite a distance across fields and through woods—and brought up at a ramshackle roadhouse—the Wayside Arbor. "He stole round from the back to a side window and there, through a crack in the shutter, looked in and saw Sylvia talking to Hines. He says he stayed there for some minutes, afraid if he went in after her she would make a scene and start a scandal. Then his eyes fell on the telephone booth and he felt sure she had telephoned either to her own home or to Reddy. Her air of waiting—she was sitting by the stove with her feet on its lower edge—confirmed him in this and he decided to let her alone. "He went back to the aeroplane, wondering what would be the outcome of the whole crazy escapade. He says he felt confident of her cleverness to hush the thing up, but he was uneasy. His discomfort wasn’t lessened when he found that she had left her bag in the machine, and on his way home one of the things that preoccupied him was thinking up the best way of getting the bag back to her. "Monday morning he went to town in a state of suspense. If she should tell there was no knowing what might happen and he was on the alert for a visit from the Doctor or even Reddy. But the day passed without any sign of trouble, and he was just calming down, thinking she had either found Reddy and gone with him or invented some story to quiet the Mapleshade people, when he read of the murder in the evening paper. "_Then_, you better believe he was frightened. He knew the bag was hidden in his room at the Lodge and that as far as he could tell, not a soul had seen the airship. As to Mrs. Cresset, he felt safe for she couldn’t possibly have made out a feature in the darkness." "But," I cried out, "why if he hadn’t done it——" "That’s all right," Babbitts interrupted. "He hadn’t done it, but I tell you he was a coward. He was in a sweat for fear of being suspected, of being pulled in as a witness, of his reputation, his business, his position. He wanted to keep out of it at any cost." "What a cur!" I said.