The automobile, with Henderson at the wheel, was at the door before dawn. Jim had sent poor Sara on before midnight. Uncle Denny put Pen and Jim into the tonneau, then climbed up beside Henderson and the machine shot swiftly out on the great road.
Pen did not speak for some time and Jim did not disturb her. She looked back at the Elephant as long as she could discern the great meditative form in the starlight. Then, after they had gotten into the hills and were winging like night birds up the mountain road, Jim felt a cold little hand slip into his lean, warm paw.
Jim's heart gave a thud. He leaned forward to look into Pen's face. It was dim in the starlight, but he saw that she smiled slightly. Jim leaned back, feeling as if he could overturn worlds with this thrill in his veins.
The great road curled like a hair among the dim black mountain tops. The machine flew lightly. Uncle Denny and Henderson talked quietly, and at last, under cover of their speech and the whirr of the engine, Pen began to talk softly to Jim.
"I am hoping that in the years to come I can remember Sara as a college boy, so full of life and ambition! He was a beautiful boy, Still, wasn't he?"
"Yes, little Pen, I loved him very much, then."
"Life was unfair to him to give him a greater burden than he was designed to bear," said Pen. "I shall miss the care of him. I am going to miss the demands he made on my best spiritual effort. I'm going to sag like a fiddle string released. If only he has gone on now to a better chance! Poor, poor tortured Sara!"
Jim rubbed the little twitching fingers and Pen leaned against his shoulder softly as though she needed his nearness to steady her. She went on a little brokenly:
"'Envy and calumny and hate and pain
And that unrest which men miscall delight
Can touch him not and torture not again——'
"I guess I won't get over the scarring, Still. I'm so tired."