ng at all," he told her gravely, though he found a smile to
answer her own--and two very serious smiles they were--"it is of quite
another complaint. And this time----"

"But _please_, Mark! I am here all alone--with you--and----"

"I know. I haven't forgotten. But, Gloria----"

They both started to a sudden sound outside, a scuffling on the porch.
Involuntarily Gloria, prone to nervous alarm in her overwrought
condition, moved hastily back toward him from whom just now she had
escaped. They glanced toward the sound; they saw at the window the
puckered and perplexed face of the "judge"; they were just in time to
see a big hand grasp him by the shoulder and yank him out of sight. They
heard Summerling expostulate; they heard Jim Spalding's far from gentle
voice cursing him.

King understood, at least in part, what must lie under Gloria's look of
distress. Surely circumstance had placed her in an equivocal position
to-night. Summerling was the type to blab; he was in no charitable frame
of mind; he had found her alone here with men, had come to marry her to
one man, and now had seen her in the arms of another. There was but one
answer, even to Mark King.

"Some time you are going to marry me, Gloria," he said gravely. "Why not
now?"

"It sounds like--like an advertisement, Mark," she laughed somewhat
wildly.

"Poor little kid," he muttered, seeing how she trembled. "But, Gloria,
why not? Some time you are going to give yourself to me, aren't you,
dear? While this man is still here, won't you let him marry us? It will
give me the right to shut that fool Gratton's mouth for him and----Oh,
Gloria, my dear, my dear----"

She stood staring at him with wide eyes. He pleaded with her.

"Will you, Gloria?"

And then from lips which did not smile he heard the very faint but no
longer evasive "Yes."

"Now, Gloria?"

"Yes, Mark. If you are sure that you want me." She spoke humbly; at the
instant she was humble. "But," she added hastily, "still you haven't
read poor papa's letter. He was very anxious. Let me go a minute, Mark.
I am going upstairs. I--I want to phone to mamma first. And while I am
gone you can read papa's letter, and--and----" Her face was hot with
blushes.

"And arrange with the judge," he said, his own voice uncertain. "Yes,
Gloria."

She ran by him then. He heard her going upstairs, he heard a door
closing after her. Then like a man who treads on air he went to the
window and threw it up and cal