Thornton, a road-map tacked on a piece of board and propped up at his feet, raised his head, and, self-occupied himself, had apparently not noticed her silence, for he spoke irrelevantly.

“I hope you won’t mind if the road is a bit rougher than usual for a few miles,” he said; “but you know we decided we didn’t like the looks of the weather at tea-time, and according to the map, which labels it ‘rough but passable,’ this is a short cut that will lop off about ten miles and take us back to Needley through Barton’s Mills.”

“Of course, I don’t mind,” Helena answered.  “How far are we from Needley?”

“About thirty-five miles or so,” Thornton replied.  “Say, an hour and a half with any kind of going at all.  We ought to be back by nine.”

Helena nodded brightly and leaned back in her seat.  Rather than objecting to the short cut that Thornton had begun to negotiate, the road, now that she gave her attention to it, she found to be quite the prettiest bit she had seen in the whole afternoon’s run, where, in the rough, sparsely settled north country, all was both pretty and a delight—­miles and miles without the sign of even a farmhouse, just the great Maine forests, so majestic and grand in their solitude, bordering the road that undulated with the country, now to a rise with its magnificent sweep of scenery, now to the cool, fresh valleys full of the sweet pine-scent of the woods.  They had explored much of it together in the little ‘run-about,’ nearly every day a short spin somewhere; to-day a little more ambitious run—­the whole afternoon, and tea, a picnic tea, an hour or more back, in a charming glade beside a little brook.

“Oh, this is perfectly lovely!” she exclaimed; and then, with a breathless laugh, as a bump lifted her out of her seat:  “It is rough—­isn’t it?”

Thornton laughed and slowed down.

“I don’t fancy it’s used much, except in the winter for logging.  But if the map says we can get through, I guess we’re all right—­there’s about an eight mile stretch of it.”

It was growing dusk, and the shadows, fanciful and picturesque; were deepening around them.  Now it showed a solid mass of green ahead, and, like a sylvan path, the road, converging in the distance, lost itself in a wall of foliage; now it swerved rapidly, this way and that, in short curves, as though, like one lost, it sought its way.

A half hour passed.  Thornton stopped the car, got down and lighted his lamps, then started on again.  The going had seemed to be growing steadily worse—­the road, as Thornton had said, was little more indeed than a logging trail through the heart of the woods; and now, deeper in, with increasing frequency, the tires slipped and skidded on damp, moist earth that at times approached very nearly to being oozy mud.

Silence for a long while had held between them.  It was taking Thornton all his time now to guide the car, that, negotiating fallen branches strewn across the way, bad holes and ruts, was crawling at a snail’s pace.