"Just the same, you shall not have one to-night," she announced
firmly. The car stopped beside them. "Get in behind. I shall sit with
the driver."

If any one had told him that this rattling, dilapidated automobile,--
ten years old, at the very least, he would have sworn,--was capable of
covering the mile in less than two minutes, he would have laughed in
his face. Almost before he realised that they were on the way up the
straight, dark road, the lights in the windows of Hart's Tavern came
into view. Once more the bounding, swaying car came to a stop under
brakes, and he was relaxing after the strain of the most hair-raising
ride he had ever experienced.

Not a word had been spoken during the trip. The front windows were
lowered. The driver,--an old, hatchet-faced man,--had uttered a single
word just before throwing in the clutch at the cross-roads in response
to the young woman's crisp command to drive to Hart's Tavern. That
word was uttered under his breath and it is not necessary to repeat it
here.

He lost no time in climbing out of the car. As he leaped to the ground
and raised his green hat, he took a second look at the automobile,--a
look of mingled wonder and respect. It was an old-fashioned, high-
powered Panhard, capable, despite its antiquity, of astonishing speed
in any sort of going.

"For heaven's sake," he began, shouting to her above the roar of the
wind and rain, "don't let him drive like that over those--"

"You're getting wet," she cried out, a thrill in her voice. "Good