“By George! If Shep wasn’t so abstemious you’d think he’d mixed alcohol with his gas,” Carroll replied. “What the devil’s got into him!”
“Maybe he wants a race,” Bruce answered uneasily, remembering Shep’s wild drive the night of their talk on the river. “There’s a bad turn at the creek just ahead—he can’t make it at that speed!”
Bruce stopped, thinking Shep might check his flight if he found he wasn’t pursued; but the car sped steadily on.
“Shep’s gone nutty or he’s trying to scare George,” said Carroll. “Go ahead!”
Bruce started his car at full speed, expecting that at any minute Shep would stop and explain that it was all a joke of some kind. The flying car was again in sight, careening crazily as it struck depressions in the roadbed.
“Oh, God!” cried Carroll, half-rising in his seat. Shep had passed a lumbering truck by a hair’s breadth, and still no abatement in his speed. Bruce heard a howl of rage as he swung his own car past the truck. A danger sign at the roadside gave warning of the short curve that led upward to the bridge, and Bruce clapped on his brakes. Carroll, on the running board, peering ahead through the dust, yelled, and as Bruce leaped out a crash ahead announced disaster. A second sound, the sound of a heavy body falling, greeted the two men as they ran toward the scene....
Shep’s car had battered through the wooden fence that protected the road where it curved into the wooden bridge and had plunged into the narrow ravine. Bruce and Carroll flung themselves down the steep bank and into the stream. Shep’s head lay across his arms on the wheel; Whitford evidently had tried to leap out before the car struck. His body, half out of the door, had been crushed against the fence, but clung in its place through the car’s flight over the embankment.
V
To the world Franklin Mills showed what passed for a noble fortitude and a superb resignation in Shep’s death. Carroll had carried the news to him; and Carroll satisfied the curiosity of no one as to what Mills had said or how he had met the blow. Carroll himself did not know what passed through Franklin Mills’ mind. Mills had asked without emotion whether the necessary things had been done, and was satisfied that Carroll had taken care of everything. Mills received the old friends who called, among them Lindley. It was a proper thing to see the minister in such circumstances. The rector of St. Barnabas went away puzzled. He had never understood Mills, and now his rich parishioner was more of an enigma than ever.
A handful of friends chosen by Constance and Mills heard the reading of the burial office in the living-room of Shep’s house. Constance remained in her room; and Mills saw her first when they met in the hall to drive together to the cemetery, an arrangement that she herself had suggested. No sound came from her as she stood between Mills and Leila at the grave as the last words were said. A little way off stood the bearers, young men who had been boyhood friends of Shep, and one or two of his associates from the trust company. When the grave was filled Constance waited, watching the placing of the flowers, laying her wreath of roses with her own hands.