stretched down towards the abysses. He began to dread the road on which he had so deliberately set his course ever since that violent sorrow of twenty years before. He was suddenly afraid of that future for which he had so long been craving, and shrank from the fulfilment of his longer, eager quest. Without delay or misadventure, the motor covered the distances with untiring appetite as fast as they unfolded themselves, further and further into blue horizon after blue horizon. Brakelond was nearing; Kingston might soon expect to see its mysterious mass dominating the lesser hills and woods. There was now but one steep barrier of hills to surmount--a slow, straight climb of three miles or more to the summit of a ridge--and thence the road would drop straight over easy declivities to the last brief levels that would still separate the traveller from his destination. Already the hill stretched ahead of Kingston. Before him, with the appalling directness of those eternal Roman roads, the white ribbon stretched taut and stern, away and away to the crown of the pass. Kingston set the motor to breast the long rise with all its might, for there was no time to waste. His calculations had run things very fine. He had only another hour or so to get home, wash, dress, and be ready to accompany Gundred on her mission of condescension. If he failed, he knew well the neat reproaches that would meet him, the mild sighings, the pathetic resignation so much harder to bear than any objurgations. He pushed the motor to its utmost exertions.