he chooses not to announce it and that is her right.
And here is where you can help me. I want you to open your camp in the
Adirondacks and give Mary a house party. I suppose Larsing and his
wife are still there?"

"Yes, but it's too early----"

"Spring is early this year. The ice must have gone out. And the house
is always comfortable; we've often had fires there when people were
having sunstroke in New York. I want you to get busy, so that we can
leave tomorrow morning----"

"Tomorrow morning? You young dynamo. It can't be done."

"It can. I'll call up the people I want in a few minutes--from here.
You can telephone to the camp. Provisions can go tonight. I'll see to
that also----"

"But can you get away yourself?"

"I'd get away if I had to resign, but I shan't. I shall break away for
two months later anyhow. We have planned to marry in Austria in about
a month from now."

"Then why in thunder do you want to run off to the woods with her now?
I never heard of anything so unreasonable. She has friends here who'd
like to see her until the last minute, you selfish young beggar----"

"It's the most reasonable thing I ever did. Don't insist upon an
explanation, Din. Just accept my word that it's a vital matter to me."

"Ah! But I know!" Mr. Dinwiddie's eyes glittered. "Hohenhauer is
here. That's the milk in the cocoanut."

Clavering scowled. "What do you mean by that?"

"I--I--well--there was a good deal of talk at the time--but then you
know, Lee, I told you the very first time we both saw her that there
had been stories about Mary."

"Well, as it happens, she told me about this man, although not his
name. Enough, however, for me to know at once this morning who he was.
I don't intend she shall see him."

"You don't mean to tell me that you are jealous of Hohenhauer. Why,
that was nearly twenty years ago, and he is almost as old as I am."

"I'm not jealous, but I've got a hunch." He scowled again, for he
fancied he could see that old story unrolling itself in Dinwiddie's
mind. It is one thing to dismiss the past with a lordly gesture and
another to see it rise from the dead and peer from old eyes. He went
on calmly, however. "I've no faith, myself, in the making of bonfires
out of dead ashes, but all the same I scent danger and I intend to get
her away and keep her away until the day before she sails; and I'll
marry her the morning she does. I'll take no chances of their
trave