Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/214

 now felt certain was the octroi. The car, which had been going extremely fast, dashed on, coasting past the little lighted house by its own impetus. Not a sound, not a creak of a wheel, not the grating of a chain.

On we sped for full forty yards past the octroi before we lost speed, and I had to slip in the clutch.

"Oh, Brown!" breathed my Goddess ecstatically. Just that, and no more. But if I had been Jack Winston and asked her to marry me at this moment, I believe she would have said "yes," in sheer exuberance of grateful bliss.

So far, so good, but we were not yet out of the wood. We drove quietly on into the town, expecting every moment to be challenged for not lighting our lamps, though we were within our rights, really, dark as it was, for it was not yet an hour after sunset. But nothing happened; not even a dog barked. We crossed the high bridge spanning the Aude, and the old cité, which we had come to see, loomed black against the dusky sky. No one molested us; no fiery gendarme leaped from the shadows commanding us to stop. My small trumps were taking all the tricks, but I had a big one still in my hand. We were now—having crossed the bridge and left the new town behind us—in a comparatively deserted region.

"My idea," I said quietly to Miss Randolph, "is to drive the car into some dark, back street, far from the ken of the gendarme. It is six o'clock. People are sitting down to dinner. That is in our favour. I shall, if possible, find a place where the car may stand for several hours without being remarked,