lked out to
the broad-stepped carriage entrance.

A low-hung long-hooded, yellow car stood there, exhaust purring faintly.
She paid the driver, sank into the soft upholstering beside him, and the
big six slid out into the street. There was no traffic. In a few minutes
they were on the outskirts of the city, the long asphalt ribbon of
King's Way lying like a silver band between green, bushy walls. They
crossed the last car track. The driver spoke to her out of one corner of
his mouth.

"Wanna make time, huh?"

"I want to get to Roaring Lake as quickly as you can drive, without
taking chances."

"I know the road pretty well," he assured her. "Drove a party clear to
Rosebud day before yesterday. I'll do the best I can. Can't drive too
fast at night. Too smoky."

She could not gage his conception of real speed if the gait he struck
was not "too fast." They were through New Westminster and rolling across
the Fraser bridge before she was well settled in the seat, breasting the
road with a lurch and a swing at the curves, a noise under that long
hood like giant bees in an empty barrel.

Ninety miles of road good, bad and indifferent, forest and farm and
rolling hill, and the swamps of Sumas Prairie, lies between Vancouver
and Roaring Lake. At four in the morning, with dawn an hour old, they
woke the Rosebud ferryman to cross the river. Twenty minutes after that
Stella was stepping stiffly out of the machine before Roaring Springs
hospital. The doctor's Chinaman was abroad in the garden. She beckoned
him.

"You sabe Mr. Benton--Charlie Benton?" she asked. "He in doctor's
house?"

The Chinaman pointed across the road. "Mist Bentle obah dah," he said.
"Velly much sick. Missa Bentle lib dah, all same gleen house."

Stella ran across the way. The front door of the green cottage stood
wide. An electric drop light burned in the front room, though it was
broad day. When she crossed the threshold, she saw Linda sitting in a
chair, her arms folded on the table-edge, her head resting on her hands.
She was asleep, and she did not raise her head till Stella shook her
shoulder.

Linda Abbey had been a pretty girl, very fair, with apple-blossom skin
and a wonderfully expressive face. It gave Stella a shock to see her
now, to gage her suffering by the havoc it had wrought. Linda looked
old, haggard, drawn. There was a weary droop to her mouth, her eyes were
dull, lifeless, just as one might look who is utterly exhausted in mind