suddenly and sprang from her chair. "I have the little car here in the
street. It was Mrs. Blount's proposal; she said you would change your
mind if I came after you and offered to drive you. Come! I'll promise to
bring you back before five o'clock. I know the time is awfully short,
but I can do it!"

If Blount hesitated it was only because her beauty and her eagerness
thrilled him until, for the moment, he could think of nothing else. Then
he closed his desk quickly and struggled into his overcoat, saying: "It
shall be as you wish. Let's go."

XXVII

IN WHICH PATRICIA DRIVES

For fifteen miles north of the capital the Quaretaro road is a
well-kept, level speedway, and Miss Anners amply proved the worth of her
summer's training by showing herself a fearless driver. Half an hour
after the small roadster had left the curb in front of the Temple Court
Building it was among the hills and climbing to the upper mesa level.

Nearing the mouth of Shonoho Canyon, they overtook and passed a horseman
turning into the canyon road. The man's horse shied and threatened to
bolt at sight of the storming car, but Patricia was looking straight
ahead, and she made no movement to slacken speed. At the passing
glimpse, Blount's mind went shuttling backward to the homecoming night
in the Lost Hills, and he made sure he recognized the rider as
Hathaway's morose henchman, the man Barto.

He wondered vaguely what Barto could be doing at the turn in the
obstructed side-canyon road, and the wonder went with him while the
little car was covering the remaining distance and flying up the
cottonwood-shaded avenue at Wartrace Hall. But a glance at his watch
made him forget the Barto incident in a heart-warming thrill of
admiration--the joy of a skilled motorist recognizing kindred skill in
another. The thirty miles from the city had been made in something under
fifty minutes.

When she brought the roadster to a stand at the carriage entrance,
Patricia spoke for the first time since she had taken the wheel for the
record-breaking drive.

"Find your father quickly and say to him what you have come to say. When
you are ready to go back, I'll keep my promise and drive you."

"That won't be at all necessary," he protested, getting out to stand
with his hand on the dash. "I am perfectly well able to drive myself;
and, besides, it would leave you at the wrong end of the road, and
alone."

"Don't stand there talking about it," she comman