Gloria stooped and kissed him on the forehead.

“I promise, papa,” she said assuringly.

“Unlock the door again, then.  There’s somebody coming.  Sit down over there, across the room.  And leave as soon as you can.  We’ll let them think you’re going to the log house for—­for——­”

She was quicker at inventions.

“Doctor Rowell, our family physician, is at Lake Tahoe.  I am going to find him.  We would telephone, but he is camped out——­”

“Pretty late for camping.  Oh, that’ll do——­”

Gloria sat in her chair across the room, looking innocently the part of a daughter in a sick-room, when the door opened and the Placerville doctor came in.  A moment later she slipped out.

* * * * *

She went out into the sunshine.  Down the road she saw Gratton.  He came quickly to meet her.  She saw that he was eyeing her keenly, and her thought was that he was wondering if by chance she had seen the hotel register.

“I don’t know just what to do,” said Gratton.  “My business is going to hold me here longer than I had thought.  I—­I promised to go back with you this afternoon.  Would it be all right if I got a man to drive you back?  I am terribly sorry, Gloria, but——­”

“Business is business!” She laughed a trifle nervously.  Then her inspiration:  “I know!  I can go to our mountain home; I’ll phone mamma, and she will come up.  We’ll spend a few days, and——­”

For an instant his eyes fairly blazed; they were bright with triumph.

“Just the thing!  I’ll go for the horses.  I’ll ride over with you and get right back here.”

“But——­”

But already, excusing himself hurriedly, Gratton was off for the horses.

Chapter XII

It was mid-afternoon when Gloria and Gratton came to the log house in the woods.  Jim Spalding, coming to take their horses away to the stable, though a man of no wild flights of imagination and given to minding his own business, was plainly curious.

“We rode on ahead, Jim,” Gloria told him, and Jim detected no false note in her gaiety.  “Mamma is coming.”

Spalding gave them a key and they went to the house.  It was Gloria who unlocked the door; Gratton, his white face looking more than ever bloodless, saw her hand tremble.  She hurried in, excused herself, and ran upstairs.  She knew that the time had come when she would have to listen to what Gratton was going to say; she knew what the burden of his plea would be—­she knew everything, she thought wildly, except what her answer would be.

She heard Gratton stirring restlessly downstairs.  He walked up and down, snapping his fingers incessantly, a habit which in the man bespoke nervousness.  He sat at the piano and the keys jangled under his touch; he got up and walked again.  He was waiting for her to come down; he was shaping in mind the words which would greet her before she had come fairly to the bottom of the stairs.