“Shucks!” said the other. “Call _that_ fast? I could do better with a hearse.” “Very likely,” returned Remsen. “The passenger in a hearse hasn’t anything to say about how he travels. We have. Ease it up.” What retort the native might have found was cut off by a persistent trumpeting from around the curve. “Honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump! Honk! Honk-honk-honk! Prr-rr-rrump, prr-rr-rramp!” “Two cars,” interpreted the native. “Bel-lerin’ fer help, I wouldn’t wonder. Prob’ly bogged down in that mud-waller at the foot of the hill. One of ’em sounds like our truck.” Again the brazen voice of warning and appeal thrilled through the air. “’_T is_ our truck,” confirmed the chauffeur. “I know the old caow’s voice. I pree-soom that couple for the boss’s cottage is gettin’ a taste of real country life in the roadin’ line.” “What couple?” asked Darcy, sitting up. “Young married pair. Got off the train at Meredith.” “At Meredith?” repeated Darcy, in troubled tones. “There’s another couple due from Ashland for the Island. All friends of the boss’s. Like’s not that’s the other car that’s whoopin’ it up daown there’t the foot o’ the hill. Quite a pa’ty.” The gleam of a horrid surmise shone in the look which Darcy turned upon Remsen. “Do you suppose it _could_ be they? Oh, it _couldn’t!_” “I’m very much afraid it is.” “Oh, that would be too awful! _Don’t_ let it be Maud and Helen!” “If I could help it, I would,” he replied, bracing himself for confession. “I’m sure it is your friends. In fact, Tom Harmon told me they were coming.” “You knew it all the time?” “I did.” “And let me come here without a word of warning?” The girl’s tone rasped Remsen’s accusing conscience. She spoke like a hurt child whose trust has been betrayed. Remsen waited until the chauffeur, who had jumped out and was on his way to the scene of distress, was beyond hearing. Then he said: “Please don’t think me wholly selfish. But how was I to know that the presence of other couples—I mean other people—would be so distressing to you?” “Don’t pretend to be stupid,” she rebuked him. “There I was, a bride without any bridegroom, looking for a place to hide myself and you let me run right into the very people of all in the world that I didn’t want to see. You knew I didn’t want to see them. I told you so,” she ended with a suggestion of fearfulness, “the first thing. On the train.” “Before you had a husband,” he reminded her. “Now you have one—” “And that makes it worse! A thousand times worse. Oh, why didn’t you tell me on the train?” “Suppose I had. What would you have done?” “Got off at the next station. Jumped out of the window. Anything!” “And have been alone in some strange place with nobody to look after you? If you’d done that, I should have felt obligated to get off, too.” “You wouldn’t!” Darcy stamped her foot. “You haven’t any right.”