opped dead in his tracks when he saw Gloria, and for the moment
all thoughts of Gaynor or a message fled from his mind. Again she was as
pale as death; she caught at the back of the chair which had served her
thus before; she lifted to King eyes sick with terror.

"I haven't got the straight of things very well," King said to her,
speaking very gently. For in his heart he was thinking: "Poor little
kid! She's only a kid of a girl and she's pretty near the
breaking-point, from the look of things, and small wonder." But aloud he
continued: "Only one thing seems clear. You are tired half to death and
worried the other half. I wouldn't let myself think of that snake
Gratton or his poison drippings. Things will work out all right." He
managed a smile of a sort, the first smile to-night, and added: "They
always do, you know."

"Do they?" she asked listlessly. And she, too, forced a smile, so wan
and bleak that it came close to putting a dash of tears into King's
eyes.

"For one thing," he said brusquely, "I'll bet you haven't had a bite to
eat since you got here; have you?" She shook her head; she hadn't
thought of such a thing as eating. When had she eaten last? Not since
she and Gratton, motoring up from San Francisco, had stopped at the
wayside lunch-counter? Perhaps that was why this giddy faintness
troubled her, why the blood drummed in her ears.

"You'll sit right down," commanded King. "Or lie down is better. In two
shakes I'll have something ready for you."

"You are so good to me." That came straight from Gloria's heart; her
eyes shone with a gratitude which struck him as far beyond proportion to
the small deed of the moment. "I'll go upstairs a moment; papa's
message----"

"It can wait ten minutes."

"Let me get it now. I--I will lie down in my room until you call me, if
you want me to."

"That's good." He watched her go slowly upstairs and then hastened to
the kitchen. He got a wood fire going in the range, scouted for coffee,
found a glass jar of bacon, a tin of milk, all kinds of canned goods.
And meantime, though occupied with much speculation concerning all that
had happened to-night and must have happened before and might happen in
the future, he never for an instant entirely forgot Gloria and how
pitifully borne down she looked. Gratton had tricked her some way, had
coerced her, had come close to breaking her utterly. And yet her
indomitable spirit had in the end triumphed over Gratton's scheming;