Chapter 7

An Unusual Ride

"We shall have to go back to the nearest farmhouse for help," said the chauffeur who had driven Gertrude Van Deusen. "We cannot get the machines apart without help. Can you stay here with him--alone?"

"Yes, yes, go on," she replied. "But first open his coat and get me his handkerchief." She was sitting on the ground with Allingham's head in her lap, staunching with her mouchoir the blood which flowed fast from a cut on his forehead. "And hurry, for we must get him to a doctor as quickly as possible."

A moment later she was alone in the beauty of the night, except for the man who lay unconscious beside her. She folded her own handkerchief and laid it on the wound and then arranged the larger one as a bandage. In tying it around his forehead, her fingers came in contact with his face--a white upturned face which appealed to her pity so deeply that she stopped to smooth his wide brow, as if he were a suffering child.

Allingham awoke suddenly as if an electric current flowed suddenly through his veins. His eyes opened, and gazing upward, he looked straight into the clear face above him, which was, also, changed and white in the moonlight. For a moment he did not recognize her. It was as if their kindred spirits had met in clear space, away from all earthly conditions. But in a moment, returning consciousness drew the veil between them and he sat up, still clinging to her hand.

"You!" he cried, "and here? What has happened? Why are you here?"

"We are having our joint debate," she replied whimsically, her voice betraying nothing of the tumult within. "But we are having it in an unlooked for place and fashion. And you have the worst of it. Be careful, please. Don't try to get up. The men have gone back for help. Our affairs seem to be decidedly mixed; but never mind; we shall soon be out of the woods--literally, I trust."

"How can you keep so calm?" said Allingham. "Most women would have gone to pieces. Why aren't you in tears?"

"Perhaps to demonstrate my fitness for the mayoralty of Roma," she replied with a touch of sarcasm. "There, the men are coming, with two others."

It was the work of but a few moments to get one automobile righted again, when it was found to be not seriously impaired; but the other one was wrecked beyond possibility of help that night.

"You'll both have to go back to Roma in this one," said Gertrude's chauffeur to Allingham.

"If you'll permit me?" queried Allingham to the young woman standing erect in the shade of the whispering pines. "But if you would prefer, I will stay at the farmhouse."

"No, no," answered Gertrude. "You must get back to the city and your physician at once. That is, if you can endure the ride."

"O, I'm all right. I was stunned a little, that's all, and my forehead seems to have been scratched quite a bit," said Allingham. "But come, if we are to ride together, we must get in."

He helped her to her seat and got in himself, while the two men tucked them in warmly and then climbed into the front seat. It was but a few moments before they were on the road again, spinning towards the city more than twenty miles away.

"Now, tell me," Allingham began, after making sure they were on the return road, "how did you happen to be here? I am devoured with curiosity."

"Don't you know--surely?" she returned.

"Know?--I? How should I?" was the answer in a tone that convinced the young woman, for the time being, anyway.

"Why," she hesitated. "It looked suspicious--or at least--well, somebody was behind it."

"You don't mean to say you were kidnaped, too," cried Allingham. "I seem to see light ahead."

"I had just ordered my carriage to go to the hall and was all ready to start," explained Gertrude, "when the automobile appeared, the chauffeur saying he had been sent for me. I supposed the committee had sent him--"

"Just as I supposed my committee had sent for me," interposed Allingham.

"Once in, and off, we came so fast I hardly realized anything until we were out of town; and when I tried to open the door I couldn't, it was fastened some way, on the outside; while as for making that automaton hear--well!--"

"The same in my case," said Allingham. "I was locked in. I've been attributing my ride to Bailey Armstrong's minions--and I presume you've been giving mine the credit for yours; but we probably owe it to the City Hall crowd. For Burke, I hear, is getting a good deal worried over tomorrow's election. But here we are, alive and with reason to be thankful."

"O, no, no," cried Gertrude, "think of that hall full of disappointed people--of the friends who believe in our good faith--of how we have failed to keep our promises. O, no, we cannot be thankful!"

"But think of the accident and of what might have happened in the crash--and didn't," he answered. "And let us forget for the rest of the ride, the political situation and that we are opposing candidates." To tell the truth, John Allingham was still tingling from that electric touch, although faint from loss of blood, and judging by the pale face of his companion, he felt that neither could endure much more. Gertrude, looking out of the cab-window at the river gleaming under the bright moonlight, was suddenly reminded of a night she had once passed by the Danube, and fell to talking of it.

Allingham, who had traveled much abroad, and had a keen memory, welcomed the reminiscent mood, and the desultory conversation for the rest of the way was such as might have been expected between two intelligent, sympathetic acquaintances, thrown together during an idle hour.

It was long after twelve when they glided into Roma again. The hall had been closed an hour before and the disappointed audience, after listening impatiently to the extempore speakers who had tried to fill the time until the principals in the joint debate should appear, had gone home doubtful of the morrow.

The auto stopped outside the gate in front of Van Deusen Hall and one of the chauffeurs, still muffled to the eyes, helped Gertrude to the ground. John Allingham had stepped out first. But before he could remonstrate with them for leaving a lady on the street alone and past midnight, in fact, just as he was beginning to ask angrily, why they did not drive in, the man slammed the door, jumped to his seat, and the cab glided away.

"And we haven't the faintest idea who they are?" said Miss Van Deusen. "They didn't have any number--"

"If it wasn't left with the wreck," answered Allingham, "and they were, doubtless, too sharp for that. They have taken it off and hidden it. But I shall have this thing looked into. A kidnaping affair like this can't fail of discovery."

"But neither of us could describe the men," returned the young woman. "I couldn't--could you? They were thoroughly disguised in their big coats and caps; and mine did not speak, only that once."

"Nor mine, except at the wreck," said Allingham. "Nor do I know of an electric cab in Roma. But nevertheless, you must go in."

He walked up to the door with her. The house was all alight, her cousin waiting in the greatest alarm. For there had been much telephoning around the city when the speakers failed to appear at the meeting, and the utmost consternation had been felt at their disappearance.

Jessica Craig met her cousin with a sob, and a demand for explanations in the same breath. But Gertrude was insisting that Allingham should step in and rest, late as it was.

"He is hurt," she explained to her cousin. "He must have something done. Telephone to Dr. Dean immediately, James."

It did not take much urging to induce her opponent to enter the hospitable mansion, for he was now weak and faint. Once inside, the warm atmosphere proved too much and he had to be helped to a sofa. Stimulants were brought and administered, and Gertrude herself assisted in getting him to the library to await the doctor.

When that functionary appeared he found a severe scalp wound and a pulse which bounded so high that he ordered him to his own carriage, bearing him off to the Allingham home as soon as he could apply the requisite number of plasters and bandages to his head. An anxious mother and aunt were already preparing to receive him as an invalid, the news of the accident and of his return to Roma having been telephoned. But before he went, he found a chance to murmur to Gertrude Van Deusen his thanks for her flying of the flag of truce, and his appreciation of her kindness.

Feverish as he was, he half hoped she might win next day, whenever in that long night, he recalled the look on her face, as she bent over him in the moonlight.

As for Gertrude, she tossed through sleepless hours, after the excitement had passed and everybody had gone home, thinking, thinking, thinking.

"What a pity for him to feel as he does about women," she said to herself. "A man full of all tenderness and chivalry at heart, he is behind his age. I wonder how we would have met if I had never gone into politics. I wonder if he would have liked me then, really?"