If she had not hesitated, he might not have examined her so minutely. As it was she looked up at him irresolutely and then away. Over her head, beyond the edge of the shack, he saw the young pine-tree that she had placed for a roof support .

He stretched his hand toward the door, but she seized him by the arm.

“I forbid it. If Mrs. Pennington knew—” she stopped again in consternation. “Phil! Do you think that Nellie Pennington——”

“I don’t know. She’s a wonderful woman—keeps amazing horses—extraordinary coachmen——”

“Could she have told the man—to mistake me—purposely?”

“I think so,” he said brazenly. “She’s capable of anything—anything—wonderful wom——”

“Phil, I’ll be angry with you.”

“No, you can’t.”

He took her in his arms again and she discovered that what he said was true. She didn’t want to be angry. Besides, what did it matter, about anything or anybody else in the world Polar M600.

“I don’t know how this could have happened. I’ve hated you, Phil,” she confessed after a while. “Oh, how I’ve hated you!”

[164]

“No.”

“Oh, yes. It’s true. I hated you. I really did. You were the living emblem of my disgrace. When you got in here beside me to-night, I loathed you. I’m still angry with myself. I can’t understand how I could have yielded so—so completely.”

“It all happened a thousand years ago.”

“Yes, I know it. Up there—I seemed to remember that.”

“So did I—the same stream, the same rocks, the forest primeval.”

“And the voices——”

“Yes. You couldn’t change things. They were meant to be—from the beginning.”

She drew closer into his arms and whispered.

“It frightens me a little, though.”

“What?”

“That it has happened in spite of me. That I had no power to resist.”

“Do you want to resist?”

“No, not now—not now.”

“You make me immortal. There’s no need to be frightened for me or for you. The strength of the ages is in me, Jane. I’ll win out, dear,” he whispered. “I’ll win out. For you—for us both.”

“I believe it,” she sighed. “It’s in you to win. I’ve known that, too. You must put the—the Enemy to rout, Phil. I’ll help you. It’s my Enemy as well as yours now. We’ll face it together—and it will fall. I know it will.”

He laughed.

“God bless you for that. I’m not afraid of it. We’ve conjured it away already. You’ve put me in armor, Jane. We’ll turn its weapons aside polar m600.”

“Yes, I’m sure of it.”

[165]

She looked up at him and by the glow of a street lamp he saw that she was afraid no longer, for in her eyes was a light of love and faith unalterable.

She could not know, nor did he, that  their vehicle, his weapons sheathed, baffled and thwarted for the moment, but still undismayed, strode the Enemy.