"I will go now," he said, "but I will come to you to-morrow." He kissed her.
"God help me," she sighed.
Duncan quietly released her and they walked silently back toward the place where they had left the others. At the corner of the building they met Sedger. It was too dark for him to notice that Marion was agitated, and any possible suspicions were averted by Duncan's saying quietly, "Here we are. We had just started to join you. Is the drag ready?"
"Yes. I have been collecting the party. You are the last to be found. It's a capital night for a drive and I intend to take you back through Jackson Park."
"Splendid," said Marion. "I adore driving in the moonlight."
The party had left the veranda, and Marion and her companions walked to where they were waiting. They were obliged to descend the stairs to the hallway below, and by the time they reached the rendezvous she felt perfectly calm and collected. They were compelled to wait a moment for a missing wrap. Marion stood next to Duncan, and a wild sense of pleasure was in her heart. The fear had gone, and her love made her defiant. She felt that she might give him his answer then.
The missing wrap was found, and the party moved toward the door. As they passed out they could see the dark outlines of the drag looming up in the moonlight. The great coach lamps cast a flickering light upon the roadway and the horses champed impatiently at the bits. Sedger mounted to the box and this time Mrs. Smith had the seat beside him. A couple of Sedger's friends had been picked up at the club, so Marion said she would take the back seat. Duncan joined her there, and she was astonished to find her husband next her also.
The drag rolled away from the Club House, and swayed and rocked as Sedger let the horses gallop through the gates and along the little stretch of road leading to the park. The evening breeze blew softly against the faces of the party, and the coach rumbled along past the park lake, with the moonlight glistening on its surface, and the slender trees standing out grim and shadowy like huge phantoms guarding its banks. Then the team settled down to a steady pace, and through the dim light the leaders could just be seen huddling together, with their ears pricked up for every sound. Horses seem to travel best at night, and the steady creaking of the harness, harmonizing with the rattle of the bars and the lively clatter of hoofs on the hard ground, came like sweet music through the night air. A leader shied at a shadow; the coach swayed for a moment, and the party crowded closer together. Some one started a college song; the refrain was caught up by the rest, and the chorus swelled forth a familiar glee. Along the tree-lined avenues or through winding roadways the great coach rolled. Now the leaders plunged into the dark shadows of the woods, or trotted merrily past some open meadow, while from the long coach-horn the notes of "Who'll buy a broom," sounded sharp and clear on the night air:
"For though the sound of the horn is dead,
And the guards are turned to clay,
There are those who remember the 'yard of tin,'
And the mail of the olden day."
Then, for a while, they sped along the shores of the great lake, and mingling with the rumbling of wheels came the splash of the waves upon the sandy shore.