ove the
muffled hum of the motor, Orme could hear the lapping of the wavelets on
the beach.

The girl roused herself. Her bearing was again confident and untired.
"Have you been up this way before?" she asked.

"No, Girl."

"This is Buena Park we are passing now. We shall soon reach the city
limits."

Clouds had been gathering, and suddenly raindrops began to strike their
faces. The girl drew her cloak more closely about her. Orme looked to see
that she was protected, and she smiled back with a brave attempt at
cheerful comradeship. "Don't worry about me," she said. "I'm quite dry."
With that she leaned back and drew from the tonneau a light robe, which
she threw about his shoulders.

The act was an act of partnership merely, but Orme let himself imagine an
evidence of solicitude in her thoughtfulness. And then he demanded of
himself almost angrily: "What right have I to think such thoughts? She
has known me only an hour."

But to him that hour was as a year, so rich was its experience. He found
himself recalling her every change of expression, her every characteristic
gesture. "She has accepted me as a friend," he thought, warmly. But the
joy of the thought was modified by the unwelcome reflection that the girl
had had no choice. Still, he knew that, at least, she trusted him, or she
would never have let him accompany her, even though she seriously needed
protection.

They were passing a great cemetery. The shower had quickly ended. The
white stones and monuments fled by the car like dim and frightened
ghosts. And now the car swung along with fine houses, set back in roomy
grounds, at the left, the lake at the right.

"Do you know this city?" the girl asked.

"I think not. Have we passed the Chicago limits?"

"Yes. We are in Evanston."

"Evanston!" Orme had a glimmer.

The girl turned and smiled at him. "Evanston--Sheridan Road."

"Evans,--S. R.!" exclaimed Orme.

She laughed a low laugh. "Ah, Monsieur Dupin!" she said.

Speeding along the lake front, the road turned suddenly to the left and
west, skirting a large grove of trees which hugged the shore. Just at the
turn was a low brick building on the beach. "The life-saving station,"
explained the girl; "and these are the grounds of the university. The
road goes around the campus, and strikes the lake again a mile or more
farther north."

Large buildings were at their right after they turned. Orme noted that
they were scattered among the trees--so