While Pen and Bob and the baby were going as fast as they could toward Upwell Castle, Pen wept at intervals and hugged the child that all the "horde" were glad she had adopted.
"My only darling," said Pen, convulsively.
Bob shook his head.
"I say, Pen, I really don't understand you, you know! I say, this is rot! You mustn't cry; I can't stand it. And you keep on saying it's your only one in a very silly way. You irritate me very much, Pen!"
"Why, Bob?" asked the desolate creature at his side.
"You could stop all this if you wanted to!"
"Not now," said Pen, "since we've quarrelled!"
"Rot!" said Bob. "You tell me who it is and I'll bring him along. But I'm glad it isn't Timothy, you know."
Timothy was now with Geordie in the other car.
"I can't tell you," said Pen.
"Then don't snivel, please," said Bob, crossly, "or I shall drive into something and kill the baby."
"Oh!" said Pen, "oh, please don't!"
"I think it's very hard lines," said Bob, "especially as Geordie and Tim know, and Miss Mackarness. If they know, I ought to."
"I had to tell them, Bob. Besides, they knew him," said the incautious Pen.
Bob's eyebrows lifted, and he drove rather fast down the next straight bit of road.
"I say," he said to himself, "I ought to make something of that."
He thought very hard and did not speak for a mile. He thought all the more.
"Tim knows 'em all, of course. And Geordie may, though I remember his saying he didn't. But who does Miss Mackarness know? If I can spot that, I can spot the winner."
He went back to the time of Pen's youth, which he only knew by hearsay, as he wasn't much more than born then, and went through the list one by one.
"By Jove!" he said, suddenly, and Penelope started.
"Yes, Bob."
"No," said Bob, thoughtfully; "no, I'm not sure."
"What aren't you sure of, dear?"
"Him," said Bob, and Penelope sighed.
After another mile's silence, Bob spoke again.
"By Jove!"
"You said that before," cried Pen, irritably. He turned his eyes upon her, and she saw them full of strange intelligence.
"Oh, what is it?" she asked, in alarm.
Bob shook his head.
"You've told me who it is," he said.
"I haven't."
"You have," said Bob. "Pen, you're a wonder! I say, are all girls like you?"
Penelope said she didn't know, and demanded his meaning.
"If they are, they're interesting but trying," said Bob. "You couldn't have made more fuss about it if it had been Bunting. Pen, you are a wonder. Well, I don't mind; I like him well enough. He's all right. I hope Bill will like him."
"You are an annoying, irritating boy," said Pen, crossly. "And you know nothing."
"Bar him and Miss Mackarness and Timothy and Smith, I'm the only one that does," said Bob, drily. "I know you, Pen. You were ashamed of him, after all you used to say. All right, don't get angry. I'm all right. I'll keep it dark till you say pull up the blinds. It's not my business. But I'm glad I know. For granny doesn't, and no one has guessed, not even Baker. And he's had great experience with girls in all parts of the world, just as he has had with dogs."
Pen wept.
"You are saying all this to worry me. How can you know?" she cried.
"I'll tell you some day," said Bob. "But because you haven't told me yourself, and have made me find out, I won't tell you who it is till I want to. But one thing I'll say, I don't think your brother Bill really likes him."
He whistled and let the car out till she fairly hummed. Pen was exceedingly cross, and hugged the baby, hoping that they would both be killed at once.
"I don't know what's going to happen," she said. "I've done my best, and nothing but trouble comes of it. If I had to begin again, I don't think I'd try to reform anything. I—I hate reform!"
In the meantime Miss Mackarness's ideas got sadly altered. She did not mind dying at first, but when Bob really went fast, it seemed to her that she loved life better than she thought.
"If I am to die," she said, "I would rather die in my bed, much rather. I want peace, and my dear lady gives me none. This young wretch is no better than a murderer. He laughs. I can't laugh. I can't even speak. The wind stops my screaming. I want to get out and die quietly."
They pulled up close to a village to let a wagon loaded with long timbers get into a side road. Miss Mackarness seized her chance, and, opening the door, jumped to the ground.
"If you please, my lady, I'm going no farther. I will come on later in a cart."
Penelope remonstrated with her. Bob was urgent and impatient.
"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a cart."
"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to interview Miss Mackarness.
"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie down and die."
"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.
"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness. "I may be used to much and past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars."
They left her in the road. And now they drove fast, for Bob set the pace, and made it a rapid one.
"I say, Geordie," said Timothy, about twenty miles farther on, "don't you think you could go slower?"
"How can I, with the other car ahead, man?" demanded Geordie.
"Well, I feels queer inside," said poor Timothy. "I'd rather ride a bucking man-eater than go another yard. Set me down!"
"Not me," said Geordie. "Be a man, Tim!"
"I won't," said Tim. "Set me down. I'll walk."
"Or come on in a cart," sneered Geordie. "Why, Mary here don't mind, do you, Mary?"
Mary did mind, but she adored Geordie, and said she didn't. She preferred to die with Geordie than to ride with Miss Mackarness in a cart.
"I don't care," said Tim; "if Mary wants to die in a blazin' fiery mass of petrol under a wreck, I don't. Let me down."
And Geordie let him down.
"A mad bull sooner," said Tim. "And, though I 'ates walkin', bein' a groom, I'd rather walk to hell than motor into paradise."
But peace was established in the cars by now. Geordie and Mary sat side by side, and whenever the pace was hot, she grabbed him so tightly that he remonstrated.
"My dear, I'd rather you hugged me when we go slow," he said at last.
"Lor', Mr. Smith, I wasn't huggin' you," remonstrated the blushing Mary.
"To an outsider it would appear so," said Geordie. "When a young lady puts her arms around a man's neck, it looks like huggin'. Mind I don't say I object, but I might run into the hedge."
"What a very amusin' gentleman you are," said Mary. "I've a very small opinion of Mr. Bunting except upon an 'orse. I'm surprised he preferred to walk."
"I'm not," said Geordie. "I expected it, and if we went really fast, you'd want to walk."
"Never," said Mary. "I love goin' fast. There's great po'try in a motor-car, Mr. Smith."
"Poetry, well, maybe," said Geordie. "To my mind, there's more machinery and oil. I wonder what the next thing will be with my lady, Mary."
"Ah," said Mary, "that's more than I can say. She's very sweet and kind, but I've give up tryin' to understand 'er. And such an 'usband, too. If I 'ad an 'usband, I'd like to show 'im off, if I was proud of 'im, and I would."
"Would you be?" asked Geordie.
"I 'ope so," said Mary.
"I guess you'd expect him to do what you wanted, like my lady," said Geordie.
"Oh, no, never," said Mary. "I'd do hexactly as I was told by 'im I loved. I don't believe in a woman 'angin' on a man and tellin' 'im to do this or that!"
And just then a mighty fine stretch of road opened before them, and Bob, half a mile in front, turned his car loose at the top speed. Geordie put his on the third, and Mary squealed.
"Hush your row, my dear," said Geordie. "Why, bless me, what's the matter with the girl!"
She had him tight by the neck.
"Oh, I'm frightened, Mr. Smith. Don't go so fast," she screamed.
"Lemme go," gasped Geordie, whom she was nearly strangling. "Lemme go, girl!"
"Never, never!" said Mary, settling on him tighter still. "Stop, stop!"
"I won't," said Geordie. "D'ye think I'll let that young un get away from me?"
"You must," screamed Mary, "or I'll get out."
"Then get out," said Geordie, rudely.
"Oh, you cruel, cruel Mr. Smith!" wailed Mary. "Let me down before I'm killed."
Geordie wrenched himself free.
"D'ye mean it?" he asked.
"Yes, you brute!" said Mary, "I does mean it."
He put her down there and then.
"You're no gentleman," said Mary.
"I never said I was," retorted Geordie, with his eyes on the vanishing Bob.
"And I hate you, you coward," sobbed Mary.
"There's a village a mile up the road," said Geordie. And he left her, disappearing in a whirlwind.
"Oh, I'm a sad, des'late, disappinted, jilted woman, with thin shoes and three and tuppence in my pocket," said Mary. "And I don't know where I am!"
She sat on a pile of road metal and cried bitterly. She took it much harder than the bishop did in a similar situation.
"Well, it can't be helped," said Geordie, "and I don't know that I'm sorry. She'd have proposed if I'd kept her at the second speed, I know that; so perhaps I'm well out of it."
He whirled after Bob and his lady, and soon caught them up.
There was peace on that car, too, for Bob hadn't been able to keep his discovery to himself.
"Yes, you're right, Bob," sighed Penelope. "But what could I do after what I'd said? And what can I do now?"
"Cheer up!" said Bob. "I'll fix it for you somehow. Do you know, Pen, I begin to think that after all women aren't as difficult to understand as Baker says."
They came to Upwell in the early afternoon, and were ignorant that the world was on their track. Bob sent a telegram to "Mr. Bramwell" as soon as they got there.