"Have we time to motor to Silverwood?" she asked.
"Would you care to?"
"I'd love to."
So he spoke to the chauffeur and entered the car after her.
It was a strange journey for them both, with the memory of their last journey together still so fresh, so pitilessly clear, in their minds. In this car, over this road, beside this man, she had travelled with a breaking heart and a mind haunted by horror unspeakable.
To him the memory of that journey was no less terrible. They spoke to each other tranquilly but seriously, and in voices unconsciously lowered. And there were many lapses into stillness—many long intervals of silence. But during the longest of these, when the Westchester hills loomed duskily ahead, she slipped her hand into his and left it there until the lights of Silverwood glimmered low on the hill and the gate lanterns flashed in their eyes as the car swung into the fir-bordered drive and rolled up to the house.
"Home," she said, partly to herself; and he turned toward her in quick gratitude.
Once more the threatened emotion confused her, but she evaded it, forcing a gaiety not in accord with her mood, as he aided her to descend.
"Certainly it's my home, monsieur, as well as yours," she repeated, "and you'll feel the steel under the velvet hand of femininity as soon as I assume the reins of government. For example, you can not entertain your cats and dogs in the red drawing-room any more. Now do you feel the steel?"
They went to their sitting-room laughing.