the story before we went any further. Now tell me what you have
learned."




CHAPTER VII


By the time Lorelei had completed her recital of those occurrences
that had excited her suspicions the car was rolling out the roads
leading toward the Long Island plains, and, with head-lights
ablaze, was defying all speed laws. Other vehicles on their way
home to the fashionable estates of Wheatley Hills, Hempstead, and
the South Shore were overhauled and left behind. The big machine
had begun its long night-song, and it flashed over the rises or
dipped into the swales with the gliding ease of movement
characteristic of an aeroplane. It went with almost the silence of
a phantom--only the sustained murmur of the motor, the whisper of
the whirling tires as they parted from the road surface, the rush
of the night wind pouring past, came to the ears of the
passengers. These softly rhythmic sounds, combined with the
swaying of the deep cushions, were decidedly restful, and had
there been nothing to challenge her sight Lorelei felt that she,
too, might have been soothed as Merkle was. But she was
fascinated, hypnotized by the gleaming tunnel of light into which
she was being hurled. The blazing panorama of fence, forest, and
hedge that took dim shape out of the blackness grew, rushed at
her, then leaped away into oblivion, dazzled her too much for
relaxation. Merkle, however, had drawn the conversation-shield