hat he was coming up. But
he passed by and the house grew silent again.

She wondered when Mark King would come! This
afternoon--to-night--to-morrow? Spalding had said nothing; she had not
mentioned King to Spalding, since she had not mentioned him to Gratton
during the long ride----

Her telephone bell rang. After the irritating way of telephones, she was
put presently into communication with Mrs. Gaynor.

"Gloria! Gloria! Is that you?" Her mother's voice sounded strange in
Gloria's ears--shaken with emotion.

"Yes, mamma. I----"

"What has happened, child? Tell me, quick! I am nearly dead with worry.
Are you all right?"

"Of course, mamma. I----"

"But _where_ are you? Where were you all night? Are you sure everything
is all right?"

Never had Gloria known her extremely clear-headed mother to be so wildly
disturbed, so nervously incoherent.

"I have told you I am all right. I am up in the mountains, at our log
house. Didn't Mr. Gratton tell you----?"

"Mr. Gratton?" Mrs. Gaynor was only more mystified. "He has told me
nothing; I haven't seen him. I tried to phone him--oh, I have phoned
everybody we know!--and he is out of town, and----"

But Gloria, panic-stricken by something her mother had said, cried:

"You have phoned _everybody!_ Oh, mamma! What--_what_ do you mean?"

"When you didn't come in last night--I have been crazy with worry! I
thought you might be spending the night with one of your friends; I
thought that maybe something had happened and it was being kept from me.
I rang up Georgia Stark and Mildred Carter and the Farrilees--and even
the emergency hospitals. I thought----"

The rest was only a meaningless buzzing in Gloria's ears; she sat
speechless herself, bereft of all reason for a dull moment, then
harbouring quick, clear thoughts, as swift, as vivid as lightning, and
in the end as blinding by their very quality of blazing light. _The
newspapers!_

Still, dominated subconsciously by the thought which had brought her to
the telephone, Gloria managed before the connection was broken to beg
her mother to come immediately to her at the log house; to tell every
one that Gloria was with her father. Her mother promised; began asking
questions, and Gloria said a bleak "good-bye" and hung up.

_The newspapers_. She sat there staring into space and seeing the San
Francisco _Chronicle_ and _Examiner_, hawked by newsboys, on stands,
thrust under doors, going like spreading snowflakes of a b