When the automobile left the garage and spun quietly down the thoroughfare, Mary Louise was amazed to find that she could not possibly fear this man. The sadness of the set face that was kept steadily upon the road was such that her kind heart ached for him.

Who was he? What could he be doing? She remembered with a quiver of dismay the letter she had seen addressed to Danny. What could Danny possibly have to do with him?

“After all,” thought Mary Louise, “how little Danny has ever told me of himself!” And the depression of the night seemed suddenly reflected in her spirits.

The car, being without lights, necessarily had to be driven very slowly, but at that they could not have been traveling for more than fifteen minutes when the man at the wheel turned the car into a narrow, grass-grown lane which ran along the edge of the marsh toward the river. About half a mile down the lane he stopped the car. At the same time the wind died down and a tense quietness came over the feelings of Mary Louise as of breathless waiting. The man at the wheel stood up and carefully gazed across the low land toward a willow copse near the river’s edge. He stood quiet and intent for some few moments. Finally his search must have been rewarded, for with a sigh of relaxation he sank down in the seat again.

It was a full minute before Mary Louise could make out what the man’s sharp sight had detected. A dark object was bobbing and dipping over the marsh land.

She was instantly recalled from her discovery by the voice of her companion. It was a kindly voice though thick and nervous, and he spoke in jerks.

“Mary Louise,” he said, “I believe you are a friend of Danny’s. At least I know he is a true friend to you, as God knows he is to me! I’m Danny’s uncle, raised him from a kid, but I guess I’m no good. Anyhow, when Danny found I wasn’t square, he ran off and enlisted with the Canadians when the war broke out. But now that he knows they’ve found me out, he has done everything possible to help me—believes that blood is thicker than water, I guess. He took your car the night before your trip just to get me to the junction, for the Santa Fe Limited. I’m off for China. But Crocker came that night and we had to hide the car and ourselves.”

Mary Louise was breathless with interest as the man talked. But why should he be telling it to her? The voice jerked on.

“Danny was sick about worrying you, and finally insisted that we push back the car and then meet here. Sorry I had to bring you but my freedom was in pawn, and now—” the man’s voice grew husky—“that lad has made me give my word to hand him my accounts. He swears he’ll make up the deficit. Good Lord, what a boy!”

Mary Louise breathed a soft “Amen.” Her eyes were like twin stars from pride and happiness, and as the man pressed a large envelope into her hand, she realized that one mystery was solved.

“Will you give him that?” said the man, and added, “God bless you both,” as he jumped to the ground and left her.

The strange individual seemed to be swallowed up instantly by the darkness, and except when the flashes of lightning revealed it, the dark bobbing object in the marsh was also invisible. Mary Louise suddenly felt very much alone. She welcomed even the approach of the mysterious something, which each vivid flash of electricity revealed as coming nearer, ever nearer. It seemed to leap and dip and sidle, but at the same time constantly to advance.

The weird hoot of an owl from a tree that edged the lane caused Mary Louise to shiver and to draw the auto robe more closely about her, although the heat of the night seemed to be weighing down all nature. She felt cold and utterly deserted. The now incessant rumble of the thunder drowned any sound the approaching object might be making, and as Mary Louise sat waiting and trembling a great bat flew blindly down and beat its loathsome wings against the car. That was enough and more than enough for Mary Louise. With a gasp she sank on the floor of the auto and covered her head with the robe.

So it happened that when the Ford runabout came close to the car she neither saw nor heard it. Neither did she see one man jump out and help the stranger into his vacant seat, as the latter wrung his hand and bade him farewell in a queer, choked voice.

“My boy, God bless you,” muttered the older man, “and I promise to be on the level for your sake from this time on. ‘Thank you’ are feeble words.”

Danny’s voice was very gentle as he put his strong arm around the trembling shoulders of the older man.

“Uncle Jim,” he said, “I understand a great deal more than before I went into that Hell over there, and I can’t forget that everything you did was for me—to give me money and education. It is just that I should square up our accounts and I want to do it.”

At this point Will White, who had been sitting quietly at the wheel, struck a match and, looking at his watch, suggested: “If my watch ain’t fast and if that train ain’t slow, we’d better hustle.”

Danny stepped back after one last hand-shake, and the Ford went chugging down the lane. With a feeling of regret not unmingled with relief that his part of the escape was accomplished, he turned to Mary Louise’s car standing empty in the shadow. He swung quickly into the driver’s seat and quite as quickly swung out again, for with a stifled “Ouch” a small tousled head appeared above the blankets and Danny and Mary Louise were face to face!

“Oh, Danny!” cried Mary Louise, when she found breath to speak to the intruder in her automobile, “Oh, Danny, I’m so glad that you’ve come to me.”

Had Danny been a disciple of accuracy he could quite easily have explained that he hadn’t the wildest idea he was coming to her. Instead, hearing the welcome in her voice, and being so unbelievably glad to see that tousled head and tear-stained face, he simply said, “Of course I came, Mary Louise,” and then he could not say another word.

He stood bare-headed there on the running board and stared and stared down at Mary Louise who was still sitting on the floor of the car and gazing up at him. Suddenly a huge drop of rain splashed full upon the upturned nose of Mary Louise. It roused her with a start and evidently filled her with a spirit of prophecy for she sagely said, “Danny, I guess it’s going to rain!”

Then Danny, too, felt the great drops beating down his collar, and with a chuckle and an, “I’ll be darned, I never noticed it,” he was swooping out the side curtains and adjusting them to their hooks.

Mary Louise insisted on helping. It was very nice to have her, though of course it delayed matters, and they were both pretty thoroughly soaked before they finally climbed back into the car. It was dry and snug in there at least.

Outside, the storm was now lashing and howling with a fury that was terrific. It was an impossibility to start the car until the wind and rain abated, so Danny switched on the little light and turned once again to Mary Louise.

Then, strange to relate, they were both tongue-tied. Mary Louise became miserably conscious that her hair was in wild disarray, and Danny became blissfully conscious that the wild disarray of Mary Louise’s hair was very lovely. It is difficult to say how long the silence would have lasted had not her hand touched the long, official envelope upon the seat beside her. Then Mary Louise remembered she was playing postman.

“Your Uncle Jim asked me to give you this, Danny,” she said, placing the bulky letter on his knee.

Danny turned to her in wonder and almost in awe. “Mary Louise, you know about me? You know about Uncle Jim, and still you speak to me?”

“Yes,” said Mary Louise softly. “Maybe I speak to you partly because I know about your Uncle Jim, because I think it is so splendid of you to take the responsibility of paying the checks he forged.”

“You can’t know that I took your car that night just to take him to the junction. He came to me to help him and I had to. But, oh, Mary Louise, when Crocker came and I had to hide your car—at least let me tell you what I suffered at the thought of worrying you! I don’t ask your forgiveness.”

Mary Louise found her voice again. “You don’t have to,” she told Danny. “I know, too, of all the trouble you took to push it back safely,” and she turned to him a face so lighted with trust and confidence that Danny gripped the idle steering wheel very hard and gazed straight ahead unseeing into the night.

If he had been observant, he would have noticed that the storm had spent its wildness and was already dying down in the distance. The cool, cleared air was creeping into the car. It was Mary Louise who first saw the new-washed moon appear a golden ball again.

“See, it’s all clearing up,” she said; “we’d better go.”

Danny lingered though for a minute longer. Then—“Mary Louise, may I ask you—” he started to say; then changed it joyously to—“Why, no; I know you won’t give Uncle Jim away to Crocker.”

“Of course not,” replied Mary Louise, and her eyes answered the steady look of his.

Then Danny started the auto slowly and drove out into the lane.