sly."

She was silenced, if not wholly convinced; and when she spoke again it
was of the convalescent assistant.

"You are not going to keep Mr. Bromley at the camp, are you? He isn't
able to work yet."

"Oh, no. You may send for him in the morning, if you wish. I--he was a
little tired to-night, and I thought----"

"Yes; you have told me what you thought," she reminded him, half
absently. And then, with a note of constraint in her voice that was
quite new to him: "You are not obliged to go back to Elbow Canyon
to-night, are you? Your room is always ready for you at Castle 'Cadia."

"Thank you; but I'll have to go back. If I don't, Bromley will think
he's the whole thing and start in to run the camp in the morning before
I could show up."

She rose when he did, but her face was averted and he could not see her
eyes when he went on in a tone from which every emotion save that of
mere friendly solicitude was carefully effaced: "May I go up and jolly
Wingfield a bit? He'll think it odd if I go without looking in at him."

"If you should go without doing that for which you came," she corrected,
with the same impersonal note in her voice. "Of course, you may see him:
come with me."

She led the way up the grand stair and left him at the door of a room in
the wing which commanded a view of the sky-pitched backgrounding
mountains. The door was ajar, and when he knocked and pushed it open he
saw that the playwright was in bed, and that he was alone.

"By Jove, now!" said a weak voice from the pillows; "this is neighbourly
of you, Ballard. How the dickens did you manage to hear of it?"

"Bad news travels fast," said Ballard, drawing a chair to the bedside.
He did not mean to go into details if he could help it; and to get away
from them he asked how the miracle of recovery was progressing.

"Oh, I'm all right now," was the cheerful response--"coming alive at the
rate of two nerves to the minute. And I wouldn't have missed it for the
newest thousand-dollar bill that ever crackled in the palm of poverty.
What few thrills I can't put into a description of electrocution, after
this, won't be worth mentioning."

"They have left you alone?" queried Ballard, with a glance around the
great room.

"Just this moment. The colonel and Miss Cauffrey and Miss Dosia were
with me when the buzzer went off. Whoever sent you up pressed the button
down stairs. Neat, isn't it. How's Bromley? I hope you didn't come to
tell us that his