glare of our lamps grew washed out and lifeless. The crowing of cocks, reiterated from place to place, sounded fictitious and unnatural. The air chilled a little and here and there we ran through a momentary blindness of mist, as if a small cloud had fallen to drift along the surface of the earth. I sat back half drowsily, with relaxed nerves; and although I had no desire for sleep, although I never loosened my hands upon the wheel, nor took my eyes for a second from the wavering end of the ribbon of light that unwound itself continually toward me, yet I[Pg 124] felt somehow unreal and very peaceful, without will or memory, like a person in a dream. The car obeyed me without my being conscious of any movement, as if I guided it by my mere volition. Slowly the pallor around me changed from green to gray; the air freshened as the stars went out; and the twitter of birds and the scattered barking of dogs underran the unvarying, inevitable drumming of the engine. That sound itself dried and hardened in the keener atmosphere. And in the pleasure of the perfect power under me, I let the car out nearly to the limit of its speed, until the sidelong sway of the body warned me that I was driving too fast for the road. We passed a milk wagon or two and an occasional early trolley. Then came the dawn, so swiftly that it was full day of sunlight and shadow before I thought to look for color in the east. Somehow it did not seem like morning, but like coming out of a curtained house into the midst of afternoon.

[Pg 124]

It was part of this same strangeness that I only felt the exhilaration of the present without any thought of trouble that lay before me and behind. I was a conquering hero, carrying my princess home in triumph out of the castle of the enchanter. I had[Pg 125] overcome desperate accidents and won my spurs; this page of the fairy-tale bore a picture in shining colors, and I knew of neither the last page nor the next. It was in this mood that I passed, unheeding, through the gathering familiarity of nearer landmarks, past the inn and up the winding hill, and drew up at last before the Tabors' door with some vague fancy that I should hear a trumpet blown. I suppose that I was unconsciously very tired and in part asleep, so that it came upon me with the shock of a violent awakening when the front door swung open and Mr. Tabor hurried out to meet us, followed by Doctor Reid.

[Pg 125]

The fairy-tale burst like a bubble, and the actuality of all that those two men stood for in my last few days and all the days to come drowned me in a breath. I got down 

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