THE HILLMAN
What followed came like a thunder-clap.Frontispiece. See page 304.The Hillman
By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Author of "The Kingdom of The Blind"
"Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo," Etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE
By GEORGE AVISON
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by Arrangement with Little, Brown & Company
Copyright, 1917,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
All rights reserved
Published, January, 1917
Reprinted, January, 1917 (twice)
February, 1917 (twice)
March, 1917; April, 1917
THE HILLMAN
I
Louise, self-engrossed, and with a pleasant sense ofdetachment from the prospective inconveniences of themoment, was leaning back among the cushions of themotionless car. Her eyes, lifted upward, traveled pastthe dimly lit hillside, with its patchwork of wall-enclosedfields, up to where the leaning clouds and the unseenheights met in a misty sea of obscurity.
The moon had not yet risen, but a faint and luminousglow, spreading like a halo about the topmost peak ofthat ragged line of hills, heralded its approach. Louisesat with clasped hands, rapt and engrossed in theesthetic appreciation of a beauty which found its waybut seldom into her town-enslaved life. She listened tothe sound of a distant sheepbell. Her eyes swept thehillsides, vainly yet without curiosity, for any sign ofa human dwelling. The voices of her chauffeur and hermaid, who stood talking heatedly together by the bonnetof the car, seemed to belong to another world. Shehad the air of one completely yet pleasantly detachedfrom all material surroundings.
The maid, leaving her discomfited companion with afinal burst of reproaches, came to the side of the car.Her voice, when she addressed her mistress, sank to alower key, but her eyes still flashed with anger.
"But would madame believe it?" she exclaimed.[Pg 2]"It is incredible! The man Charles there, who callshimself a chauffeur of experience, declares that we arewhat he calls 'hung up'! Something unexpected hashappened to the magneto. There is no spark. Whosefault can that be, I ask, but the chauffeur's? And sucha desert we have reached! We have searched the maptogether. We are thirty miles from any town, manymiles from even a village. What a misfortune!"
Louise turned her head regretfully away from themysterious spaces. She listened patiently, but withoutany sort of emotion, to her maid's flow of distressedwords. She even smiled very faintly when the girl had