way to Tahoe in the hope of getting help.
Well, she should have it. Angela was only too glad to be able to do
something for any one in trouble. "I'm glad to see you again," she said,
as if it were quite a commonplace thing for a stranger to have dropped
apparently from the clouds in search of her. "But I'm so sorry you've had
to wait. Perhaps you wrote and I haven't got the letter yet?"

"No, I didn't write. I couldn't have explained in a letter," said the
weary-faced visitor; "and maybe you wouldn't have wanted me to come if
you'd known before-hand. I thought if I'd travelled all this way though,
just to speak to you, you wouldn't refuse. I've been two nights on the
way."

"Oh, how dreadful!" exclaimed Angela. "You must let me get you a room at
once. Some people are leaving to-night. They surely can put you up in the
hotel."

"Thank you very much," returned the young woman, "but I couldn't impose on
you as your guest. You'll see that when I've told you why I came. I can't
get away to Truckee, I know, for the train goes too soon, but I'll take a
room at some simpler place where it's cheaper than this."

"We'll talk of that later," said Angela soothingly. "Now I hope you'll
come to my rooms and rest, and tell me about yourself. When we're both
washed and refreshed we'll dine together in my sitting-room quietly."

"But it isn't about myself I want to talk," protested the stranger. "I
must tell you my name, Mrs. May. Of course, you've forgotten it. It's Miss
Wilkins--Sara Wilkins."

She didn't want to talk about herself! That was puzzling and didn't fit in
with Angela's deductions. However, she made no comment, and talking of her
day on Mount Tallac, escorted Miss Wilkins to a pretty sitting-room, which
in her absence had been supplied with fresh flowers.

"Shall we talk first?" Angela asked. "Or would you like to rest and
bathe----"

"If you're not too tired yourself to listen to me, I'd rather talk now,"
Sara answered with a kind of suppressed desperation. "But you do look
tired. You're thinner and paler than at Santa Barbara! Yet I've been
screwing my courage up to this for so long I can hardly bear to wait."

"If I was tired I've forgotten it now," said Angela. "And I'm as eager to
begin as you can be. But you mustn't feel that it needs courage to speak
out, whatever you have to say. And if there's any way for me to make it
easier for you, I should be so glad if you could give me just the
slightest hint. Shal