As a matter of fact, he was far less incredulous of Ember's theory than he chose to admit.
X
THE WINDOW
Though they left New York not long after three in the afternoon, twilight was fast ebbing into night when the motor-car—the owner driving, Whitaker invalided to the lonely grandeur of the tonneau—swept up from a long waste of semi-wooded countryside, sparsely populated, bumped over railroad tracks, purred softly at sedate pace through the single street of a drowsy village, and then struck away from the main country road.
Once clear of the village bounds, as if assured of an unobstructed way, Ember gave the motor its head; with a long, keen whine of delight it took the bit between its teeth and flung away like a thoroughbred romping down the home-stretch. Its headlights clove a path through darkness, like a splendid sword; a pale shining ribbon of road seemed to run to the wheels as if eager to be devoured; on either hand woodlands and desolate clearings blurred into dark and rushing walls; the wind buffeted the faces of the travellers like a soft and tender hand, seeking vainly if with all its strength to withstand their impetus: only the wonderful wilderness of stars remained imperturbable.
Whitaker, braced against the jolting, snatched begrudged mouthfuls of air strong of the sea. From time to time he caught fugitive glimpses of what seemed to be water, far in the distances to the right. He had no very definite idea of their whereabouts, having neglected through sheer indifference to question Ember, but he knew that they were drawing minute by minute closer to the Atlantic. And the knowledge was soothing to the unquiet of his soul, who loved the sea. He dreamed vaguely, with yearning, of wave-swept shores and their sonorous silences.
After some time the car slowed to a palpitant pause at a spot where the road was bordered on one hand by a woods, on the other by meadow-lands running down to an arm of a bay, on whose gently undulant surface the flame-tipped finger of a distant lighthouse drew an undulant path of radiance.
Ember jumped out to open a barred gate, then returning swung the car into a clear but narrow woodland road. "Mine own domain," he informed Whitaker with a laugh, as he stopped a second time to go back and close the gate. "Now we're shut of the world, entirely."
The car crawled cautiously on, following a path that, in the searching glare of headlights, showed as two parallel tracks of white set apart by a strip of livid green and walled in by a dense tangle of scrub-oak and pine and second growth. Underbrush rasped and rattled against the guards. Outside the lighted way arose strange sounds audible above even the purring of the motor—vast mysterious whisperings and rustlings: stealthy and murmurous protests against this startling trespass.