"May I help?"
It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice—a sepulchral voice, the sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he had been a Russian dancer, would probably have caused the management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden sepulchral voices.
Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.
"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone wrong."
Into the glare of the head-lights there stepped a strange figure, strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head pop up in front of your automobile. At any rate, it startled Bream. I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam's unconventional appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots against it. Only then did he feel comparatively safe.
Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now, with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would stand no nonsense, set the engine going again.
"Why—why," she stammered, "why are you wearing that thing on your head?"
"Because I can't get it off."
Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.
"S—Mr. Marlowe!" she exclaimed.
"Get in," said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. "Where can I take you?"
"Go away!" said Billie.
"Get in!"
"I don't want to talk to you."
"I want to talk to you! Get in!"
"I won't."
Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted her like a kitten and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever increasing speed down the drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.
6
"Put me down," said Billie.
"You'd get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace."
"What are you going to do?"
"Drive about till you promise to marry me."
"You'll have to drive a long time."
"Right ho!" said Sam.
The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand and grabbed at the steering wheel. "Of course, if you want to smash up in a ditch!" said Sam, righting the car with a wrench.
"You're a brute!" said Billie.
"Cave-man stuff," explained Sam, "I ought to have tried it before."
"I don't know what you expect to gain by this."
"That's all right," said Sam, "I know what I'm about."
"I'm glad to hear it."
"I thought you would be."
"I'm not going to talk to you."
"All right. Lean back and doze off. We've the whole night before us."
"What do you mean?" cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.
"Have you ever been to Scotland?"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought we might push up there. We've got to go somewhere and, oddly enough, I've never been to Scotland."
Billie regarded him blankly.
"Are you crazy?"
"I'm crazy about you. If you knew what I've gone through to-night for your sake you'd be more sympathetic. I love you," said Sam swerving to avoid a rabbit. "And what's more, you know it."
"I don't care."
"You will!" said Sam confidently. "How about North Wales? I've heard people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?"
"I'm engaged to Bream Mortimer."
"Oh no, that's all off," Sam assured her.
"It's not!"
"Right off!" said Sam firmly. "You could never bring yourself to marry a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need. Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won't do!"
This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not bring herself to dispute it.
"Anyway, I hate you!" she said, giving the conversation another turn.
"Why? In the name of goodness, why?"
"How dared you make a fool of me in your father's office that morning?"
"It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a lunatic with a pistol. It wasn't my fault that you found out."
"I shall never forgive you!"
"Why not Cornwall?" said Sam. "The Riviera of England! Let's go to Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?"
"I said I should never forgive you and I won't."
"Well, I hope you're fond of motoring," said Sam, "because we're going on till you do."
"Very well! Go on, then!"
"I intend to. Of course, it's all right now while it's dark. But have you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan't notice them myself because it's a little difficult to notice anything from inside this thing, but I'm afraid it will be rather unpleasant for you … I know what we'll do. We'll go to London and drive up and down Piccadilly! That will be fun!"
There was a long silence.
"Is my helmet on straight?" said Sam.
Billie made no reply. She was looking before her down the hedge-bordered road. Always a girl of sudden impulse, she had just made a curious discovery, to wit, that she was enjoying herself. There was something so novel and exhilarating about this midnight ride that imperceptibly her dismay and resentment had ebbed away. She found herself struggling with a desire to laugh.
"Lochinvar!" said Sam suddenly. "That's the name of the chap I've been trying to think of! Did you ever read about Lochinvar? 'Young Lochinvar' the poet calls him rather familiarly. He did just what I'm doing now, and everybody thought very highly of him. I suppose in those days a helmet was just an ordinary part of what the well-dressed man should wear. Odd how fashions change!"
Till now dignity and wrath combined had kept Billie from making any enquiries into a matter which had excited in her a quite painful curiosity. In her new mood she resisted the impulse no longer.
"Why are you wearing that thing?"
"I told you. Purely and simply because I can't get it off. You don't suppose I'm trying to set a new style in gents' headwear, do you?"