ue as you'll look to-morrow morning when you have to
go back to town and tell every one you meet that you and Dorothea Pruyn
have run away and got married. That's when you'll look foolish and cut a
pathetic figure. As things are it could be kept between two or three of
us; but if you go on, you'll be in all the papers by to-morrow
afternoon. Of course your mother knows?"

"I suppose so; I wired when I thought it was too late for her to spread
the alarm. But I don't mind about her. She'll be only too glad to have
me back at any price."

"Then--I'd go."

The light from the hotel was full on his face, and she could almost have
kissed him for his doleful, crestfallen expression.

"Well--I will."

There was no heroism in the way in which he said the words, and the
spring disappeared from his walk as he went back to the hotel to pay his
bill and order out his "machine." Diane smiled to herself to see how his
head drooped and his shoulders sagged, but her eyes blinked at the mist
that rose before them. After all, he was little more than a schoolboy,
and he and Dorothea were but two children at play.

She did not continue her own way into the hotel. Now that the first part
of her purpose in coming had been accomplished, she was free to remember
what the comedy with Carli had almost excluded from her mind--that
within an hour or two Derek Pruyn and she might be face to face again.
The thought made her heart leap as with sudden fright. Fortunately,
Dorothea would have arrived by that time, and would stand between them,
otherwise the mere possibility would have been overwhelming.

Yes; Dorothea ought to be coming soon. She looked at her watch, and
found it was nearly eleven. On the stillness of the night there came a
sound, a clatter, a whiz, a throb--the unmistakable noise of an
automobile. She hurried to the end of the terrace; but it was not
Dorothea coming; it was Carli going away. She breathed more freely,
standing to see him pass, and knowing that he was really gone.

A minute later he went by in the moonlight, waving his hand to her as
she stood silhouetted on the terrace above him. Then, to her annoyance,
the motor stopped and he leaped out. For a moment her heart stood still
in alarm, for if he was coming back the work might be to do all over
again. He did come back, scrambling up the steps till he was at her
feet. But it was only to seize her hand and kiss it hastily, after
which, without a word, he was off agai