It was not only the shock of the just avoided danger which held her in its grip, but the other and even more startling revelations which had come with it.  Her head was whirling, her pulses were thrilling with the conflict of new and strange impressions.  Since three minutes ago a new Heaven and an old earth had suddenly shown themselves.

The low voice pressed the question:  “Not faint—­nor frightened?”

She looked up at him then for an instant, although she could barely see the outlines of his face.  “Not with you here,” she answered breathlessly, with the impulse toward absolute honesty with which such an experience sometimes shakes the spirit out of its conventionalities.

He was like a statue beside her for the space of six of her heartbeats.  Then his hand again found hers, pressed it in both of his, and let it go; and his quiet speech, the note deeper than before, came once more in her ear: 

“I shall never forget that.”

They went on in silence.

After a time Ridge Jordan turned about and made a carefully worded inquiry into the comfort of his guests, which they answered with as careful assurances that they were entirely comfortable and confident.

Ridge’s voice was not quite natural.  A biting shame was harassing him, whose only alleviation was the possibility that nobody—­or at least Dorothy—­had noticed in the excitement of the part that he had played.  He was saying to himself, wretchedly, that he had not known it of himself, that he could not have believed it of himself.  How could he have done it—­have had the impulse, even, to leap to safety and leave her behind?  Had she seen—­had she seen?  Yet when, after a time, she leaned forward and spoke to him of her own accord, her voice was so kind, rang with such a golden note, that he felt with sudden relief that she could not have seen.

He turned about and began to talk again, growing more and more secure in his belief that at the supreme moment of danger nobody had thought of anybody but himself or herself, and by the time the car drew into the home town Jordan was serene again.

Under the first of the arc lights Julius took counsel with his watch.  He swung about and spoke tersely:  “You and I’d better jump out here and make the station, Waldron.  It’s closer to train time than I thought.  We’re awfully obliged to you, Ridge.”

“We’ll go that way.  It’s only a block or two out of our course,” Jordan insisted, eager to speed the parting guest.

The car drew toward the string of electrics which lighted the small suburban station at which Waldron had arrived in the morning.  The glancing, silver-arrowed radiance illumined the whole interior of the car under its wide-spreading, hooded top.  Waldron could see Dorothy’s brilliant eyes, the curve of her lips, the rose colour in her cheeks repeating warmly the deeper rose colour of the little silk bonnet which kept her dark hair in order—­all but one wild-willed little curly strand which had escaped and was blowing about her face.  Dorothy, in her turn, could see Waldron’s clean-cut, purposeful face, his deep-set eyes, the modelling of his strong mouth and chin, the fine line of his cheek.