“That’s because you can’t see yourself.  Give the motor a rest.  There is plenty of time.  Let’s have tea here instead of on the way home.  There is cold tea and chicken-loaf, bread and butter, and half a tart.”

The doctor brightened.  “You may have the half-tart,” he concluded generously.  “And in return you will forgive me my pessimism.  I believe I am hungry and thirsty and—­if I could only swear I should be all right presently.”

Esther put her small fingers in her ears and directed an absorbed gaze toward the sunset.

Callandar laughed.

“All over!” he called.  “Richard is himself again.  And now we have got to be serious.  Painful as it is, I admit defeat.  I can’t make that car budge an inch.  It won’t move.  We can’t push it.  We have no other means of conveyance.  Deduction—­we must walk!”

“Yes, only like most deductions, it doesn’t get us anywhere.  We can’t walk.”

“Not to Coombe of course.  Merely to the nearest farm house.”

“There isn’t any nearest farm house.”

“Then to the nearest common or garden house.”

“I thought we were going to be serious.  Really, there is no house within reasonable walking distance.  We are quite in the wilds here.  Don’t you remember the long stretches of waste land we came through?  No one builds on useless ground.  The nearest houses of any kind are over on the other side of the lake.  The beach is good there and there are a few summer cottages and a boarding house.  Farther in is the little railway station of Pine Lake—­”

“Jove!  That’s what we want!  Why did you try to frighten me?  Once let us reach the station and our troubles are over.  There is probably an evening train into Coombe.”

“There is.  But we shall never catch it.  We are on the wrong side of the lake.  We have no boat.  There is a trail around but it is absolutely out of the question, too far and too rough, even if we knew it, which we do not.  It would take a woodsman to follow it even in daylight.”

“But—­” The doctor hesitated.  He was beginning to feel seriously disturbed.  It seemed impossible that they could be as isolated as Esther seemed to think.  Distance is a small thing to a powerful motor eating up space with an effortless appetite, which deceives novice and expert alike.  It is only when one looks back that one counts the miles.  He remembered vaguely that the nearest house was a long way back.

“I’ll have another try,” he answered soberly, “and in the meantime, think—­think hard!  There may be some place you have forgotten.  If not, we are in rather a serious fix.”

“There are no bears now,” said Esther.

“There are gossips!” briefly.