ng journey, they yet
diffused that aroma of luxury which cannot be concealed.

The presumable son, a tall, hawk-nosed young man who sat beside the
chauffeur, turned to speak to those inside, and King's glance followed
his. He thus caught sight of a profile next the open window and close by
him. He stared at it, his heart suddenly standing still. Who was this
girl with the bronze-red hair, the perfect outline of nose and mouth and
chin, the sea-shell colouring? Even as he stared she turned her head,
and her eyes looked straight into his.

He had seen Miss Anne Linton only twice, and on the two occasions she
had seemed to him like two entirely different girls. But this girl--was
she not that one who had come to visit him in his room at the hospital,
full of returning health and therefore of waxing beauty and vigour?

For one instant he was sure it was she, no matter how strange it was
that she should be here, in this rich man's car--unless--But he had no
time to think it out before he was overwhelmed by the indubitable
evidence that, whoever this girl was, she did not know him. Her
eyes--apparently the same wonderful eyes which he could now never
forget--looked into his without a sign of recognition, and her
colour--the colour of radiantly blooming youth--did not change
perceptibly under his gaze. And after that one glance, in which she
seemed to survey him closely, after the manner of girls, as if he were
an interesting specimen, her eyes travelled to Red Pepper Burns and
rested lightly on him, as if he, too, were a person of but passing
significance to the motor traveller looking for diversion after many
dusty miles of more or less monotonous sights.

King continued to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible
except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are
accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was
not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded him
with eyes of interest, and if he had he would not have realized just
why. His handsome, alert face, its outlines slightly sharpened by his
late experiences, his well-dressed, stalwart figure, carried no hint of
the odious plaster jacket which to his own thinking put him outside the
pale of interest for any one.

But it could not be Anne Linton; of course it could not! What should a
poor little book agent be doing here in a rich man's car--unless she
were in his employ? And somehow the fact