He had wrested from Fate another twelve hours of life, and life was sweet.
[Chapter XIII]
Dawn was breaking over Wilton and the first shafts of sunlight transforming its pearly sands into sparkling splendor and its sea into spangled gold, when a trim motor car, bearing a New York number plate, slipped quietly into the village and drew up at the town garage.
From it stepped a man, small and somewhat bent, with rosy cheeks, kindly brown eyes, a countenance schooled to stolidity rather than naturally so, and hair touched with grey.
"May I leave my car here?" he inquired of the lad who was sweeping out the building.
"Sure!"
"Fill her up for me, please. And you might clean her a bit. Some of the roads were pretty soft."
"They always are at this season of the year, sir. You are astir early. I thought I was, but I reckon you've beaten me. Come far?"