hapchance impulse--he glanced over the nearest guard-rail, down at
the bed of the creek. And stopped incontinently, gaping.

Stationary in the middle of the depression, hub-deep in the
shallow waters, was a motor-car; and it, beyond dispute, was
identical with that which had occupied his thoughts on the
ferry-boat. Less wonderful, perhaps, but to him amazing enough, it
was to discover upon the driver's seat the girl in grey.

His brain benumbed beyond further capacity for astonishment, he
accepted without demur this latest and most astounding of the
chain of amazing coincidences which had thus far enlivened the
night's earlier hours; and stood rapt in silent contemplation,
sensible that the girl had been unaware of his approach, deadened
as his footsteps must have been by the blanket of dust that
carpeted both road and bridge deep and thick.

On her part she sat motionless, evidently lost in reverie, and
momentarily, at least, unconscious of the embarrassing predicament
which was hers. So complete, indeed, seemed her abstraction that
Maitland caught himself questioning the reality of her.... And
well might she have seemed to him a pale little wraith of the
night, the shimmer of grey that she made against the shimmer of
light on the water,--a shape almost transparent, slight, and
unsubstantial--seeming to contemplate, and as still as any
mouse....

Looking more attentively, it became evident that her veil was now
raised. This was the first time that he had seen her so. But her
countenance remained so deeply shadowed by the visor of a mannish