She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blazing; then, with a glance at the unmoving arm, she bowed reluctant assent.

“All I promise is to remain in the car,” she said.  “May I go back into the tonneau?”

Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily dead, he responded, with a half-smile, “That promise I think is sufficient.”

He bent to his task of diagnosis.  After much futile spinning of the crank, he rose and contemplated the stalled engine.

“Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, and I have no matches in this garb, I must go to that farmhouse up the hillside—­where the light shines through the trees—.  Will Your Highness regard your parole as effective until my return, not to leave the car?  Yes?  I thank Your Highness; I shall not be long.”

The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud blasts, and he stopped with a murmured apology to silence it by tearing off the bulb and throwing it to one side.

The Colonel turned and took his way through the woods, statuesquely upright and spectral in his long Arab cloak.

Benton and McGuire had just passed the crossing where Von Ritz had left the main road, when McGuire’s quick ear caught the familiar tooting of the other horn and brought his hand to his employer’s arm.  The car was stopped, and McGuire, by match-light, examined the road with its frosty mud unmarked by fresh automobile tracks, save those running back from their own tires.

The runabout turned and slipped along cautiously to the rear, watchful for byways.  At the cross-road McGuire was out again.  His match, held close to the mud and gravel, revealed the tread of familiar tires.

“All right, sir,” he briefly reported.  “The other edition went this track.”

With a twist of the wheel Benton was again on the trail.  Back in the side lane stood a car in which a girl sat alone, solemnly indignant.

“Cara!” Benton was standing on the step.  His voice was tremulous with solicitude and perplexed anxiety.  “Cara!” he repeated.  “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” she responded coolly.  “Something seems to be broken.”

“I don’t mean that.”  McGuire was already investigating.  “What does it mean?”

She sighed wearily.

“When I foolishly agreed to play Juliet to your Romeo,” she informed him, and her tones were frigid, “I didn’t know that your Romeo was really only a Dromio.  The other edition of you”—­he flinched at the words, and McGuire choked violently—­“is back there, I believe, hunting for matches.”

“She’s all right, sir,” interrupted McGuire in triumph.  “She’ll travel now.  It’s only disconnected spark plugs and a short circuiting.”

“Travel, then!” snapped Benton.  “Leave the runabout here.  The other gentleman may prefer not to walk home.”

As he swung himself into the tonneau, the chauffeur had already seized the wheel and the car was backing for the turn.  Far back up the hillside there was a crashing of underbrush.  A spectral figure, struggling with the unaccustomed drapery of a Bedouin robe, emerged from the woods into the open, and halted in momentary astonishment.