f their camp
hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
passing so near without greeting his friends.

"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."

As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
off without them.

The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.

The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
the novelist was maddening.

"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
should run across you."'

The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
returning to Fairlands the next day.

"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
also returning to the orange groves and roses."

Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
Ign