Picard sat beside his daughter and in those two faithful hearts was no doubt of their escape.

“Antoine,” said Julie, “I know that we owe our lives to you.”

She offered him a small gloved hand.  It rested in his giant grasp a moment, then he raised it to his lips and kissed it.

“I’d have followed you across the world, my lady,” he said.

“I know it, Antoine.”

John, watching intently, sent the machine forward at fair speed.  The road again stretched before him lone and white in the moonlight, which fell in a heavy silver shower.  He did not know where they were going, but there was the road, and the hussars could not ride hard enough to overtake them.  Now and then he stole a glance at Julie, and the same indomitable courage was always shining in her eyes.  She was not weary and she was as wide awake as he.  By and by both Antoine and Suzanne slept, sitting upright, but Julie, wrapped almost to the eyes in cloak and hood, was still quiet, watching everything with wide fearless eyes.  John brought the machine down to a slow pace and guided it for the moment with one hand.

“Julie,” he said softly, “I don’t know where we’re going, but I know that we’ll escape, and knowing it I now have something to ask you.”

“What is it, John?”

“When we reach Paris, you’ll marry me, Julie?”

“Yes, John, I’ll marry you.”

The other hand came from the wheel and as he leaned back, they kissed in the moonlight.  The great machine ran on, unguided but true.  They kissed again in the moonlight, and for a splendid moment or two her arms were about his neck.

“Julie,” whispered John, “will your mother consent?”

“Yes, when I tell her to do so.”

“And Philip?”

“Yes, without telling.”

The automobile, still unguided, ran on straight and true as if it were alive, and knew that it carried the precious freight of two young and faithful hearts, and that nothing else in all the world was so tender and true as young love.

Far in the night, when the road had climbed up the hills, John saw a light flashing and winking in the valley, and from a more distant point another light winked and flashed in reply.  He read the fiery signals and he knew that the alarm was abroad.  The hussars had come to Obenstein, only to find that the birds had flown, and doubtless, too, to find among the bushes the dead body of Weber, Prince Karl’s most trusted and unscrupulous agent.  Julie had gone to sleep at last and Antoine and Suzanne slumbered on.

He alone watched and worked, and for a few moments he felt a chill of dread.  The hussars would spread the alarm and the whole country would now be seeking them.  He saw a road turning from the main one, and leading deeper into the mountains.  Instinctively he followed it, like an animal seeking hiding in the wilderness, and now the machine rose fast on the slopes, dense forest lining the way on either side.  Far below in the valley the lights and the wireless signals talked incessantly to one another and the hounds were hot on the chase.