III
It was not until a week later that Barney Creighton in his new position had the pleasure of driving Marion Maxwell out into the country in Roger Patterson's great green touring car. So naturally the day was a red-letter one for Barney. Roger Patterson had suggested motoring to a little inn overlooking the Hudson, some fifty miles from New York. His description of the charming spot met with Marion's instant approval, and thus it was that at last Barney Creighton had the pleasure, as aforesaid, of driving the woman he loved, and the man she thought she loved, out into the country on a certain warm September morning.
Now they shot through a patch of woodland, then through a little village and again back into the woodland again. All about them hung a wondrous silence, broken softly by the many whispering voices of the wood; the chirping of crickets, the gurgling of hidden brooks and the gently soothing, sighing of the breeze through the treetops.
"Isn't it all wonderful," exclaimed Marion enthusiastically, at length; "everywhere silence, not a soul to intrude, not a voice to break the wondrous, fairylike web of solitude!"
