E Phillips Oppenheim

The Hillman E Phillips Oppenheim

Louise, self-engrossed, and with a pleasant sense of detachment from the prospectiveinconveniences of the moment, was leaning back among the cushions of the motionless car. Her eyes, lifted upward, traveled past the dimly lit hillside, with its patchwork of wallenclosed fields, up to where the leaning clouds and the unseen heights met in a misty sea ofobscurity. The moon had not yet risen, but a faint and luminous glow, spreading like a halo aboutthe topmost peak of that ragged line of hills, heralded its approach. Louise sat with claspedhands, rapt and engrossed in the esthetic appreciation of a beauty which found its way butseldom into her town-enslaved life. She listened to the sound of a distant sheepbell. Hereyes swept the hillsides, vainly yet without curiosity, for any sign of a human dwelling. Thevoices of her chauffeur and her maid, who stood talking heatedly together by the bonnet ofthe car, seemed to belong to another world. She had the air of one completely yetpleasantly detached from all material surroundings. The maid, leaving her discomfited companion with a final burst of reproaches, came tothe side of the car. Her voice, when she addressed her mistress, sank to a lower key, but hereyes still flashed with anger."But would madame believe it?" she exclaimed. "It is incredible! The man Charles there, who calls himself a chauffeur of experience, declares that we are what he calls 'hung up'!Something unexpected has happened to the magneto. There is no spark. Whose fault canthat be, I ask, but the chauffeur's? And such a desert we have reached! We have searchedthe map together. We are thirty miles from any town, many miles from even a village. Whata misfortune!