ied now, as I say, and that is where we
shall find your father. Are you still willing to do as I tell you to?"

"In all things reasonable."

"As if I'd ask you to do anything unreasonable!" she broke out
half-petulantly. "Listen; there is a lawn with a circular driveway in
front of the hotel. Drive to the outer edge, near the cliff, and stop
the car."

Five minutes later he had obeyed his instructions literally. Through
the groving of trees on the lawn he could see the lights in the lower
story of the inn. At the flicking of the motor-switch a man with a pair
of lineman's climbing spurs at his belt rose up out of the shadows and
touched his cap to the lady, saying: "The boss is here; he has just gone
in."

"I know," was the low-toned response. And then to Evan: "Help me out,
please."

When they stood together beside the car she spoke again to the lineman.

"Is it all right, Jackson? Can you do what I asked you to?"

"We can try it a whirl," said the man; and thereupon he led the way
across the lawn, around to the darkened end of the bungalow-built resort
house, and through a sheltering pergola to a side door. "I got hold of
the key, and it's open," he signified, meaning the door. "Can you find
your way in the dark on the inside?"

"Perfectly," was the whispered reply; and then the lineman guide got his
further orders: "Go back to the car and see that nobody interferes with
it, Jackson." Then, when the man had disappeared in the tree shadows,
the little lady turned short upon Blount. "I am going to take you where
you can see and hear, but you must promise me not to interfere unless it
becomes perfectly plain that your father needs you. Is it a bargain?"

"It is--if you'll allow me to be the judge of the need."

She laughed softly. "You are simply incorrigible, and I should think
there would be times when Patricia would be tempted to stick pins into
you," she mocked. Then: "Come on; we are wasting time," and, entering
the house, she took his hand and led him through a dark passage, up a
stair, through another passage into a long, low-pitched room, bare and
empty save for a great pyramid of dining-tables and chairs piled in the
middle of it, and lastly through a cautiously opened door which admitted
a flood of yellow lamp-light from below.

"The musicians' gallery," she whispered. "Go to the screen and look
down, but for Heaven's sake, don't make any noise!"

Blount obeyed mechanically. The orchestra gallery,