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 way to Tahoe in the hope of getting help. Well, she should have it. Angela was only too glad to be able to do something for any one in trouble. "I'm glad to see you again," she said, as if it were quite a commonplace thing for a stranger to have dropped apparently from the clouds in search of her. "But I'm so sorry you've had to wait. Perhaps you wrote and I haven't got the letter yet?"
"No, I didn't write. I couldn't have explained in a letter," said the weary-faced visitor; "and maybe you wouldn't have wanted me to come if you'd known before-hand. I thought if I'd travelled all this way though, just to speak to you, you wouldn't refuse. I've been two nights on the way."
"Oh, how dreadful!" exclaimed Angela. "You must let me get you a room at once. Some people are leaving to-night. They surely can put you up in the hotel."
"Thank you very much," returned the young woman, "but I couldn't impose on you as your guest. You'll see that when I've told you why I came. I can't get away to Truckee, I know, for the train goes too soon, but I'll take a room at some simpler place where it's cheaper than this."
"We'll talk of that later," said Angela soothingly. "Now I hope you'll come to my rooms and rest, and tell me about yourself. When we're both washed and refreshed we'll dine together in my sitting-room quietly."
"But it isn't about myself I want to talk," protested the stranger. "I must tell you my name, Mrs. May. Of course, you've forgotten it. It's Miss Wilkins—Sara Wilkins."
She didn't want to talk about herself! That was puzzling and didn't fit in with Angela's deductions. However, she made no comment, and talking of her day on Mount Tallac, escorted Miss Wilkins to a pretty sitting-room, which in her absence had been supplied with fresh flowers.
"Shall we talk first?" Angela asked. "Or would you like to rest and bathe——"