Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/402

 the land. Above hung sable and opaque skies, cloud cloaked; below the mountainside sloped to the clustered, twinkling lights of Montbar, the city, to which the road wound down the mountain, a serpentine course outlined by threads of electric light.

Behind him—apparently the eighth of a mile distant—the stark and ugly battlements of the Castle of Grandlieu reared their blunt heads to Heaven. Before them, immediately at hand, lay the road, and upon it squatted, huge and monstrous, an automobile, purring huskily, diffusing a taint of petrol upon the cold night air, illuminating the highway with huge, glaring head lamps.

The woman paused and caught O'Rourke in her arms again. "My beloved!" she said. And then, turning, called aloud: "Monsieur Chambret!"

A man clambered hastily out of the tonneau of the car and came running towards them. With a few brief words the woman explained the situation. O'Rourke said nothing. He could not. It was all he could encompass to keep his feet. Chambret sprang to his side, silently, and gave him aid to the automobile. Somehow the Irishman was got in upon the rear seat. The princesse entered with him. Chambret buried them both under a mountain of fur robes.

O'Rourke closed his eyes, his head resting upon the woman's shoulder, her lips—he never forgot the cool, firm touch of them—upon his forehead. He heard the motor cough raucously and was conscious of a thunderous vibration, together with a sweep of nipping air against his face.

The freshness of it and the crashing of the car through the night kept him conscious for a space. He whispered now and again with the woman of his heart—little, intimate phrases that epitomized the undying passion that was theirs.