It was a soft June evening. Triona sat at the wheel of the great antiquated touring-car to which he had given its new lease of life, driving homewards from the neighbourhood of the Great Junction Town. He had taken a merry party that day some hundred and fifty miles through the tenderest greenery of early summer, through dark gorges with startling shadows, through cool lanes, over hills in the open sunshine; and, in the sweetness of the evening, he had put them down at the place whence they had started. For all his mood of despair, he had enjoyed the day. The poet in him had responded to the eternal call of the year’s life laughing in its gay insolence of youth. Since nine in the morning the sweet wind of the hills had swept through his lungs and scenes of loveliness had shimmered before his eyes.
Alone at the wheel, he thought of the passing day of beauty. Was it not worth living—just to enjoy it? Was it not worth living—just to translate into words, if only for the sake of the doing, the emotion of that enjoyment? He had passed through a beech wood, a world of pale emerald, like fairy seas, above, and a shimmer of blue-bells below as though the sky had been laid down for a carpet. . . .
He drove slowly and carefully. The car had done its good day’s work. It was knocking a bit, like an old horse wheezing in protest against over-estimation of its enduring powers. He had tried it perhaps too high to-day. He loved the re-created old car, as though it were a living thing. A valiant old car, which had raced over awful roads in Flanders. It was a crazy irritation that he could not pat it into comfort. Nursing it with the mechanician’s queer tenderness, he came to the straight mile, near home, of road on the mountain side, with its sheer drop into the valley, ending at the turn known as Hell’s Corner, at which the overwrought doctor, on the night of mad adventure, had lost his nerve. Just past the corner branched the secondary road to Fanstead, for the great road swept on by the expiring end of Pendish village; but by walking from Pendish, as he had done on the day of the aforesaid adventure, through lanes and fields, one cut off a great bend of road and struck it on the fair-mile beyond the turn. And now a few hundred yards from the corner the engine gave trouble. He descended from his seat and opened the bonnet. He discovered a simple matter, the choking of a plug. The knocking, he knew was in the cardan shaft. He would have to replace the worn pin. While cleaning out the choked plug with a piece of wire and blowing through it to clear it from the last fragment of grit, he wondered how long it would take to have the spare pin made. He was going out again the day after to-morrow. Could he risk the old car? To-morrow he would take her down and see for himself the full extent of the trouble. Meanwhile he screwed the plug on again, shut down the bonnet, cranked up the starting handle and jumped up beside the wheel.
But just as he put in the low gear, his eyes were riveted on a familiar figure some twenty yards away, walking towards him. For a moment or two he remained paralysed, while the old-fashioned gears crunched horribly. There she advanced slim, erect, in Tussore silk coat and skirt, a flash of red bow at the opening of her blouse. The car began to move. At that instant their eyes met. Olivia staggered back, and he read in her bewildered gaze the same horror he had last seen in her eyes.
What she was doing here, on this strip of remote road, he could not understand. Obviously she had not expected to find him, for she looked at him as though he were some awful ghost. He changed gear, went full speed ahead and passed her in a flash. Then suddenly, the command of doom shot through his brain. This was the end. Now was the end that should have come, had he not been a coward, months ago. He deliberately swerved off the road and went hurtling over the hill-side.
Olivia staring, wide-eyed, wondering, at the racing car, saw it happen. It was no accident. It was deliberate. Her brain reeled at the sudden and awful horror. She swayed to the bank and fainted.
A two-seater car, a young man and woman in it, came upon her a few moments later and drew up. The woman ministered to her and presently she revived.
“There has been a horrible accident,” she explained haggardly. “A car went over—you can see the wheel marks—Oh my God!”
She pointed. A column of smoke was rising from the valley into the still evening air. She scrambled to unsteady feet, and started to run. The young man detained her.