As we sped over the La Meilleraie bridge the clocks of Lautenburg and in the old tower of the castle were just striking nine. * * * * * * The road, an endless white ribbon, sparkled softly in the light of the moon. It slipped beneath our wheels as the car whirled along at a giddy pace. And every time we turned a corner I learned how amazingly sure were the hands of the woman who was driving me. The whole thing had happened so quickly that when I was once more in a condition to take things in we had already done quite sixty miles. Then Aurora's expression, "I shall be back by this time tomorrow," came to mind, and I realized in a flash that in a few short hours I should be separated from the Grand Duchess. I did not rebel. The prodigious speed at which we were going lulled me into a kind of helpless torpor which soon developed a curious bliss of its own. Dark clumps of trees and funny little switchback bridges over silvery rivers fled behind us. We passed a cart laden high with hay: a few inches more to the left would have meant death. Death. I uttered that word and glanced at Aurora's set face. Her gauntleted fingers looked like thin, white bars on the steering wheel. Suddenly my thoughts turned to the war. Was it really a fact? How should I find my country? I confess to my shame that such was the intoxication of speed, so great its power of tearing me from myself that I could not concentrate my mind on that dreadful thought. At that hour I was wholly indifferent to what the future might have in store for me. A shaded electric lamp showed up every detail of the map, but Aurora hardly looked at it once. She knew the way by heart I remember her telling me that she had passed that way many a time when going to take the waters. She knew exactly at what point to make a detour round the towns whose red halo emerged from the darkness to right and left, grew before our eyes, was overtaken and disappeared in the night. Three or four times she muttered: Cassel, Giessen, Wetzlar! Cassel, Giessen, Wetzlar! What did I care? The light from the lamp lit up a clock near the speedometer. But I could not see the time. Thought had deserted me.... Without slowing down we went through a hilly town with houses hidden among dark clumps of trees. "Wiesbaden," murmured Aurora. "My villa," she remarked as we passed one of these houses. "It's not yet one o'clock. We have come very well." She turned to the right where the road forked. Far away on the left the lights of a big city glowed in the night sky. "That's Mainz," she said, "and here's the Rhine." At top speed we crossed the sacred river by a suspension bridge. A dull roar came up from below. Here and there, where the darkness was less intense, we could see its green waters. At the far end of the bridge we thought we heard an order. A hoarse, "Who goes there!" Then, unmistakably, the sharp sound of a shot.