o be late--detestable thing to do--going away in the
morning--thousand-and-one things to attend to--be down in a moment to
offer humble apology."

Swiftly and silently Wentworth removed the coat from within his own,
crossed the hall, substituted the baum marten for the Russian sable,
and reentered the gentlemen's dressing room, where it was but the work
of a moment to conceal the garment within the folds of his coat. Then
he descended the stairs, entered the dining room, and seated himself in
the vacant chair beside Jean McNabb.

The dinner went as dinners do and was brought to a rather abrupt
termination by someone's discovery that it lacked but five minutes to
eight. As the guests rose from the table Wentworth gave a startled
exclamation.

"In my haste in dressing I forgot my pocketbook. I distinctly
recollect removing it from my pocket and tossing it upon the bed, and
there I must have left it." He turned to Elsie Campbell. "I hope you
will pardon me if I hurry away but really, that pocketbook contains a
rather large sum--expense money you know--and, I am almost certain that
I neglected to lock my room. I will join you at the door of the
theatre; I can easily reach there before you, if I hurry."

A moment later he rushed from the house with his overcoat upon his arm,
and hurried to the hotel where, lifting the tray of his trunk, he
deposited the sable coat, replaced the tray, locked and strapped the
trunk, and finished just in time to respond to the knock of the
truckman. Five minutes later he was waiting at the theatre for the
others, who appeared just before the rise of the curtain on the first
act.

VIII

When Oskar Hedin left the store at the closing hour, he went directly
to his hotel, bolted a hasty luncheon, slipped into outdoor togs and a
half hour later was silently threading an old log-trail that bit deep
into the jack-pines. Mile after mile he glided smoothly along that
silent winding white lane, his skis making no sound in the soft, deep
snow.

Just beyond a swamp, in the centre of a wide clearing, surrounded upon
three sides by the encroaching jack-pines and poplars, and upon the
fourth by a broad bend of the river, Hedin removed his skis and seated
himself upon a rotting log of a tumbled-down cabin, there to think.

So, that's why she wanted a new coat? She was going out for the
evening with Wentworth. And she invited Wentworth to go tobogganing,
on this particular afternoon o