ys at the camp. I must say I'm
devoured with curiosity----"

Mary shrugged her shoulders. "I'm too sleepy for curiosity. What time
must we start?"

"About nine, if the car gets here on time. It takes two hours to come
up the mountain, and they'll hardly be induced to start before seven.
I'll tell Larsing to telephone at six."

"It's now eleven. We have eight hours for sleep. Good night, and
believe that I am immensely grateful. You've arranged it all
wonderfully."

She stamped her foot as Mr. Dinwiddie silently closed the door.

"Moritz! _What_ does he want? _Why_ has he followed me here? But he
has no power whatever over my life, so why should I care what he wants?
. . . But that this--this--should be interrupted!"

She undressed without calm and slept ill.

LV

The flight next morning proved simpler of accomplishment than she had
anticipated. The men were going to a neighboring lake to fish, Larsing
having excited them with the prospect of abundant trout; and why fish
in your own lake when you may take a tramp of several miles through the
woods to another? They begged Clavering to go with them, and as man
cannot exist for long in the rarefied atmosphere of the empyrean
without growing restive, he was feeling rather let down, and cherished
a sneaking desire for a long day alone with men.

But he told Mary that he did not want to go out of their woods and down
to that hideous village for any such purpose as to watch her sign
papers, and he stood on the landing waving his hat as she and Mr.
Dinwiddie crossed the lake in the motor boat to the waiting Ford. For
once his intuitions failed him, and he tramped off with the other men,
his heart as light as the mountain air, and his head empty of woman.

Mary looked back once at the golden-brown lake, set like a jewel in its
casket of fragrant trees, and wondered if she would see it again with
the same eyes. She was both resentful and uneasy, although she still
was unable to guess what harm could come of this interview. If
Hohenhauer wanted her to go to Washington she could refuse, and he had
long since lost his old magnetic power over her.

But as the Ford bumped down the steep road between the woods she felt
less like Mary Ogden every moment . . . those mists of illusion to
withdraw from her practical brain . . . returning to the heights where
they belonged . . . she wondered how she could have dared to be so
unthinkingly happy . . . the sp