It was a great nuisance. He had done everything to make such a _dénouement_ unlikely; had chosen her indeed rather with a view to the stupidity of Caroline than to the attraction he found in her. She was rich, married, considerably older than himself, had in fact a grown-up daughter and a husband who was then in the process of earning a title for her and himself, together with a handsome retiring pension, in the Indian Civil Service. She also had a motor-car which she could drive independently of chauffeurs. When he found that the affair had become serious he began avoiding her; and being, as a pedestrian, the more agile of the two he might have done it; but he could not avoid the motor-car. And so one day, having gone to a distant town to preach and to stay the night, he found the lady and the motor-car awaiting him at the chapel door, with an offer to motor him back to town all in the day. In that there seemed a hazardous sort of safety; tender passages while on a high road and going at high speed, were compatible with virtue; there was also a spice of adventure in it; a half-engagement that they should meet abroad under platonic but unencumbered conditions, must now probably either be renewed or broken; to renew it would, he thought, be the safest way of temporizing with a situation which must end. Caroline had no capacity for jealousy, and the affair was becoming ridiculous. And so getting into the car, with four hours of daylight left, and a hundred and fifty miles to go, Mr. Trimblerigg accommodated himself to the situation that was soon to end, and renewed with a warm asseveration of feelings that could not change. They were still over fifty miles from their destination, and the darkness of night had settled, when the spice of adventure increased for Mr. Trimblerigg in a sudden shock. The car had irremediably and unaccountably broken down in a way which its owner announced would take hours to repair. They found themselves upon the outskirts of a village to which the requirements of motorists had added a small hotel; and before Mr. Trimblerigg could make up his own mind what to do, his companion had taken command of the situation and made retreat impossible, by entering in the visitors’ book a Mr. and Mrs. Somebody: names not their own. She had done this, while leaving him in charge of the car. They were booked, he found, to stay for the night; and the accommodation was as their names indicated. Mr. Trimblerigg was not prepared to have a scene; but neither was he to be coerced from the ways of virtue. If he ever left them it would be in his own time and in his own way. And so presently, when they had dined together very pleasantly, and when Mr. Trimblerigg, in order to restore his sense of adventure, had experimented by taking wine, he simply stepped out casually into the darkness of the night and did not return.