"They rose high—about two thousand feet, he thought—and then he headed East. They were winging their way over Cokesbury Lodge on toward the hills in the distance when Reddy must have sighted the lights of Longwood as he came down the Firehill Road.
"Cokesbury swears he had no intention of kidnapping her. He says he had no definite idea of where he was going, that his plan was simply to get her away from Reddy and put an end to the marriage. Personally, I don't believe him. I think he had a perfectly clear idea of carrying her off to Cokesbury Lodge, and that his chivalrous scheme was to put her into such a compromising position she would be willing to marry him. Maybe I'm wrong—I don't know. Anyway, he very soon saw you can't abduct a high-spirited, hot-tempered girl against her will.
"After about fifteen or twenty minutes he was conscious of her getting uneasy and speaking to him—words that he couldn't hear but that he knew to be at first startled questions, then angry commands. He shouted replies, but the great machine kept steadily on its way, neither turning nor dipping downward. Then she realized and broke into a fury, turning upon him in the dark, putting her face close to his and screaming for him to bring her down. The noise made it impossible to argue with her, and fearful of what she might do, he held her off with his elbow, the delicately balanced machine swaying as she seized his arm and shook it, lunging up against him, her cries of rage rising above the thunder of the screw.
"Can't you imagine it? The big ship sailing through the night with the lights of farms and little towns sliding by far below, and above the sky muffled deep in black clouds. Poised between them the man and woman, each gripped by a different passion—suspended there like two naked souls in a sort of elemental battle of the sexes.
"He admits he was scared and if he could have spoken to her would have pacified her with all sorts of assurances. But speech was out of the question, and when she made a sudden lunge across him for the wheel he realized she would kill them both if he didn't bring her to earth. Throwing her back with a blow of his elbow, he yelled that he was coming down and as she felt the machine begin its glancing, downward glide she fell back into her place, suddenly quiet, then leaned forward scanning the country below them.
"A momentary break of the clouds let a little light spill through and by this he saw a bare, bold landscape darkened by woods, and with the gleam of a large body of water to the right, showing against the blackness like polished steel. He made a landing in an open space, an uncultivated field with a hillock in the center covered with grass and surrounded by trees. The water had drained off this and it was quite dry.
"She was hardly out on the ground and he was preparing for an explanation when to his surprise she curtly told him to follow her and led the way along a ridge that skirted the lake. This, too, was dry, a fact curiously in his favor, for their feet left no tracks, the grass closing on the trail they swept through it. She did not address him again till, the dim shape of a house appearing, he asked her if she was going there and she answered in the same, curt way: Yes; she was cold. A wharf jutted out in front of the house and in stepping from the grass to the planks he made a motion to help her, but she started away from him as if he was a snake, making two or three steps into the liquid mud that ran up to the wharf's edge. It was then he thought she dropped the glove. Once again on the planks she took a key from her purse, fitted it in the lock and opened the door.
"The room was pitch dark and Cokesbury stood in the doorway while she went in. She moved about as if she was accustomed to the place, lit a lamp, set a match to the fire already laid and gave him a copper kettle to fill with water from the lake. When he came back with it the table was set out with tea things and the fire was leaping up the chimney. She hung the kettle on a crane, swung it over the flames and then, turning to him, said:
"'Do you know where you are?' He said he didn't and she answered: 'You're in Jack Reddy's bungalow at Hochalaga Lake, the place where I've spent the happiest days of my life.'
"He looked at her in amazement and she smiled scornfully back at him. 'You fool!' she said, 'to think you could come blundering in and stop me from marrying the only man of all of you who's worth a heartbeat.'