hat Kate had arrived in
Bakersfield with a story of Mrs. Gaylor's being called suddenly away from
home; that Carmen had never answered a short letter she wrote; all these
things roused her suspicions. Indeed, she had even gone so far as to
associate the box of poison-oak leaves with Mrs. Gaylor; and now the
thought that the Spanish woman might have followed her to Tahoe sent a
shiver through her veins. Who could the lady be, if not Carmen Gaylor? Who
but Carmen would wait patiently for her coming, through a whole day?

For an instant Angela was tempted to answer: "I'm too tired to see any one
this evening." But that would be cowardly. Besides, she was curious to
see her visitor, whoever it might be.

"The lady's waiting in the veranda now," said a hotel clerk. "She's been
here ever since morning, but she went away at lunch time and came back
afterward. I don't know what she means to do to-night, for the train for
Truckee will be leaving in a few minutes, and she hasn't engaged a room."

Angela went out on the veranda, feeling' a little tense and excited, but
when a small, blue-frocked, gray-hatted figure, dejectedly lost in a big
rocking-chair, was pointed out to her, excitement died while bewilderment
grew.

Her first thought was that she had never seen this countrified-looking
person before, but as her guest turned, raising to hers a pair of
singularly intelligent, rather frightened eyes, she knew that she had met
the same glance from the same eyes somewhere before.

The little woman's face was so pale, so tired, her whole personality so
pathetic yet indomitable, that Angela's heart softened.

"How do you do?" she asked kindly. "I hear you have come to see me, so we
must know each other, I'm sure----"

The visitor was on her feet, the chair, from which she had sprung with a
nervous jerk, rocking frantically as if a nervous ghost were sitting in
it.

"We don't know each other exactly," Miss Wilkins hastened to explain, as
though eager not to begin with false pretences. "The only time you ever
saw me was at Santa Barbara last May, but you were very good to me
and--and I found out your name----"

"Of course. I remember quite well!" Mrs. May smiled reassuringly, for the
poor little thing was certainly terrified and ill at ease as well as
tired. Angela sprang to the conclusion that the young woman was in money
difficulties, and having remembered the loan of the sitting-room at Santa
Barbara had somehow found her