"I don't think I quite understand the bishop," said Bob, as he left the dignitary of the Church stranded long miles from anywhere. "He looked very queer. But I suppose they're made bishops because they are queer, unless it's on account of their legs. I can understand the gaiters, but the apron licks me. I'll ask him about it some day. But I wonder where we are, and how much longer Geordie will go on. It's luck I've had no puncture and no breakdown. I thought it was all up when I sent that dog over the hedge. He did fly. I wonder whether any bobbies have spotted my number. I don't care. Gordon owes me a lot of money by now. What's thirty-two times two thousand odd? Oh, I can't remember. I'm getting rather tired."
But he stuck to Geordie like a burr to a sheep, and between the two of them they stirred up more ancient peace and the haunts of it than any other two cars in the United Kingdom. They fairly bounded through sleepy old Boston, and a policeman, waked up from sleep by Geordie, was wide-awake enough by the time Bob came through to call on him to stop.
"I wouldn't stop for an army of policemen," said Bob, recklessly. "I don't care. I'll catch Geordie if I die for it. Gordon will pay my fines. I wonder how the bishop is. This is the Spilsby road, is it? I wonder whether Pen's at Spilsby? Will she be very cross with me? Oh, that was a hen! I do think hens shouldn't be allowed in a road."
A dog stood in the middle of the way and barked. In the middle of his second bark, the front wheel caught him. He ended his bark in the ditch, and was very dreamy about the whole affair for some time afterward.
"That was a dog," said Bob. "I do think dogs shouldn't be allowed in a road."
He missed a horse by a hairbreadth a mile farther on, and felt very cross. He said horses shouldn't be allowed in a road. He said the same of carts and of a carriage, of children and agricultural labourers. They were so slow. For now Geordie was going pretty fast, and Bob had to go on the fourth speed, which is highly illegal and wicked and very dangerous. He had never enjoyed himself so much before, and he was undoubtedly the happiest boy in the three kingdoms.
"Geordie doesn't know I'm after him," he said. "I'll bet he's riding along easy. That car of Pen's can go like lightning if he lets her out. He will be mad when I come up."
And suddenly he perceived down a long, white road that Geordie was going more slowly.
"This must be Spilsby," said Bob. He saw Geordie's dust go off at a right angle toward the right.
"I've done it," said the exultant boy. "We must be near Pen's now."
For to turn to the right in the neighbourhood of Spilsby means to go toward the North Sea.
Bob ran into Spilsby quite meekly on the second speed, and turned after Geordie. A mile farther on, Bob saw a house in some trees, and all of a sudden there was no more dust from Geordie's car. Bob pulled up in the middle of the road.
"By Jove, I've done it, I know," said Bob, "and now I feel a bit nervous. I wonder what Pen will say, and whether her husband is there, and what the kid's like. Well, here's for it! She can't do more than eat me."
And he drove on till he came to the house, which was an ivy-covered building like a square barrack, and would have been hideous without its creepers. There was a moat around it and big elms hid it from a distance. The gate was open, and by the front door stood Geordie and his car. Bob gave a view-halloo, and, twisting through the gate, came to a standstill alongside Pen's big yellow racer.
And Penelope herself came to the door, and saw not only Geordie, whom she recognized simply by the fact that he was in a car she knew, but an undistinguishable stranger also.
"Oh!" said Bob.
"Eh?" said Geordie.
"Who—" said Penelope.
And Bob staggered out of his machine, and fairly reeled when he stood upright. He had no notion that no one, not even Titania, could have recognized him. He forgot his goggles, and he forgot he was so dusty that one might have planted cabbages on his cheeks. He did not know that he weighed several pounds more than usual, owing to the amount of Lincolnshire that he carried on him. He had no idea that he was awful, hideous, a goggled, dirty portent. He smiled, and the dirt cracked upon him, and Penelope shrank back.
"Oh, I say, Pen, are you mad with me?" he asked.
And Penelope shrieked and ran to him, and, falling upon him, embraced him with horrible results to her clothes.
"Oh, Bob, Bob, is it you?" she cried.
"It's me, right enough," said Bob. "I say, can I have a drink? I'm dying! Am I dusty? Yes, so I am. Oh, Pen, it's come off on you! I say, I do want a drink. It's such a warm day, and Geordie would go so fast. I followed Geordie."
Geordie looked horribly disgusted, but neither Pen nor Bob paid the least attention to him.
"Followed up by a boy," groaned Geordie, "and in that thing!"
He regarded the mean fifteen-horse-power concern with great contempt. "Well, I'm blessed!"
"Oh, come in, Bob, dear Bob," said Pen.
"Are you glad to see me?"
"Oh, I've been dying to see you."
"Upon your honour?" asked Bob.
"Yes, yes," said Penelope. "I want to ask you so much, and I've got so much to say. But tell me, tell me quick. Does any one else know where I am?"
Bob shook dust out of his head.
"Not a soul, unless it's the bishop," he replied.
"What bishop?"
"The Bishop of Spilsborough," replied Bob. "I left him on the road."
"Oh!" gasped Pen, "is he following you?"
"Not much," said Bob. "He got scared and got out and wouldn't get in again, and he talked such rot I thought he was mad, for a bishop, so I left him, and suppose he's walking home again."
Pen almost shook him.
"But what was he doing with you?"
"He wanted to come part of the way in my car, so I let him, and he was awfully funky. I don't think much of bishops if they're all like him, though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the cathedral."
"Fighting? with swords? Oh, what—" said Penelope.
"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't know. I'll tell you by and by. Bradstock's at Spilsborough. Where's my drink, Pen? I say, did you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford? That was fun. He threw De Vere out of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and Scott."
"What Mr. Bunting?"
"They thought he was Timothy Bunting, but he wasn't. I had tea with him afterward. I'll tell you by and by. Do you know grandmother had fits about it all?"
Penelope knew nothing, or very little, and as the results of her fatal conduct were thus revealed to her in dreadful incomplete chunks, her heart almost failed her and she half-forgot her own terrible troubles.
"Am I mad, or is Bob?" she asked. "Oh, the bishop and Guardy and duels and fits and Mr. Bunting and windows and Liddell and Bob having tea!"
She ran for a drink herself, and poured it over Bob in her eagerness for more news.
"I say, Pen, be careful! That went down my neck," said Bob, "and outside it, too. I say, who've you married? Tell me. Where's the kid? May I see it? I say, Pen, you look splendid, but sad somehow and rather worried. I feel better now. I don't mind what went down outside. I'll have a bath soon. Where's the kid? They do talk a lot about it in town. They say, some of 'em, that you've married the Rajah of Jugpore, the little beast, and that the baby is black, or partly black. Is it? I know it isn't."
"Oh, oh!" said Pen, "how horrible of them!"
She rushed at the bell, and when the servant came she commanded the instant appearance of the baby and the nurse.
"You know they said you married Timothy Bunting," said Bob.
Penelope flushed crimson.
"It was wicked of them."
"That beast Weekes told granny you had. She said she knew it. That's how I had tea with Mr. Bunting at Oxford, after he'd chucked Plant and Gordon down-stairs. They were sick. Oh, oh! is this the kid?"
Pen took the precious infant in her arms, and told the nurse she might go and have tea. When she had disappeared, Pen burst into tears.
"He's—he's all I've got," she said, sobbing.
Bob started.
"I say, what do you mean? You don't mean you aren't married at all?"
"No, no," said Penelope. "I mean—oh, it's terrible! Oh, baby, I love you!"
She kissed the baby, who was certainly a very fine baby, and wept again. Bob inspected the boy with great interest.
"I say, I rather think it's like Plant," he said.
Pen gasped.
"But in this light, it's rather like Gordon."
"Oh!" said Penelope.
"And its forehead is like De Vere's a little. I say, won't you tell me who you've married?"
Penelope hugged the baby and howled.
"I can't, I can't. We've q-quarrelled," she said, "and he's furious, and I'm f-furious with him."
"Why?" asked Bob, still inspecting the baby for signs of his male parentage, "why? Oh, I say, sideways he reminds me of Williams and Rivaulx, and upside down he's a little like Carew and Goby. But why have you quarrelled, Pen?"
Pen explained with tears how it had happened.
"You see, I said he wasn't to tell," she said. "And he went to your grandmother and told!"
"So did all the rest," said Bob, "and that was where granny got very confused. I listened. I know it was a sneak thing to do, but I was thinking of your interests, and she said to the last of 'em: 'I know you've come to say you've married dear Penelope.' It was very pathetic, Pen. I never thought granny could be pathetic before. She usually makes me pathetic instead, or she used to. But was he one of 'em?"
"He was," sniffed Pen, "and he broke his solemn oath. The others were noble. I sent them telegrams to say they were noble."
"That's why they all went to Spilsborough, where you sent the telegrams from," said Bob, "and that's why Plant and Rivaulx fought with swords under the cathedral, till the bishop and the dean stopped them. I tell you the dean was mad."
"Oh, dear, dear!" said Penelope. "I wish they wouldn't. Did they hurt each other?"
"Not much, I think," replied Bob. "I didn't see any blood. But when I told 'em you'd married Timothy Bunting, Rivaulx lay on the grass and tried to bite it and howled dreadfully."
"Poor marquis!" said Pen. "But why did you tell them so dreadful a story?"
Bob shook his head.
"I'm sorry, Pen, but I believed it. Weekes said she knew, and granny had fits. There's something about fits that makes you believe almost anything. But you haven't told me who it is. I say, with the light sideways on that baby, he reminds me of Bramber. But who is it?"
"We've p-parted," said Penelope. "He came and said he'd told, and I was very f-furious, and we had a r-row. And he was so cross and mad, because without me he couldn't prove it. For we were married in other names, and I wrote my name in another handwriting, and I said I would deny it. And he flew into a passion and into a motor-car and went away. And I've only my p-pride and b-baby left. And I'm so sorry for every one. And how did you find me?"
Bob told her how he had done it, and told her of Bradstock's advertisement, and told her about the bishop, and more about Mr. Bunting of All Saints, Oxford, who was the strongest man he had ever seen. Carteret Williams was nothing in his hands.
"And now I've told you everything, won't you tell me who it is?"
"No," said poor Penelope; "it would humiliate me to tell now, and I won't."
"But they must know here," said Bob.
"Only three," replied Penelope. "Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith and Timothy. And Timothy was so unhappy when he heard he had married me that I sent him away to Upwell, where there are more horses. But he's back now. And Miss Mackarness and Geordie Smith have sworn not to tell. And I expect you not to ask them."
Bob snorted a little at this.
"Oh, all right, but I shall have to say where you are when I go back to Spilsborough."
"Oh, you won't," said Pen.
"I must," said Bob. "Bradstock is terribly worried about it now, and thinks you've treated him badly, and the bishop is very curious, and he asks questions in a way that it's difficult not to answer somehow. And besides there's granny and all the rest. I say, do you know Gordon has been speculating for me, and has made seventy thousand pounds for me?"
"You don't say so?" cried Pen.
"I think it must be Gordon," said Bob. "When the shadow's on that kid, he looks rather like Gordon, if you can think of Gordon as a baby, which is hard. But when I'm a duke, I shall rebuild Goring and pay off some of the mortgages. Whoever you've married, I'm very grateful to you, Pen, about Gordon and De Vere. De Vere bought the spotted dog I told you of. I found Goby weeping with Ethel. That made me think it wasn't him. But now you say you've quarrelled with him, I'm not sure again. I say, I'm very sleepy. May I stay to-night?"
"Of course," said Penelope. And then a brilliant idea struck her.
"Bob, you do love me, don't you?"
"What rot! of course," said Bob.
"Then stay here altogether for a time," said Pen.
"By Jove, what fun!" cried Bob. "I'll send 'em a wire, and I will. Can Geordie go somewhere else but Spilsborough and send one?"
"Certainly," said Penelope. And it was arranged that Geordie should go to Lincoln to send it from there. This is the telegram Bob sent to Lord Bradstock:
"I have found Penelope. She won't say who it is because she has quarrelled with him, and she won't let me come back yet. I will take care of her. Tell grandmother and Guthrie. She quarrelled with him because he said he was married to her. But the baby is not black."
And Bradstock swore. The bishop was too tired to swear, perhaps, but he was very cross. So were all the others, including her husband.