"Can you understand now why I've seemed worried, and anxious and why I've concealed my affairs? I went there and met you, but when I refused to betray you I found I was caught in a trap. Whitney Stoddard is hounding you in every possible way to make you give up your mine, and after I refused to give back my stock he set out deliberately to ruin me!"
She shuddered and lay silent and Rimrock moved uneasily.
"What was it he wanted you to do?" he asked at last and she tore herself swiftly away.
"I can't tell you—here. But come up to my rooms. I defied him, but I did it for you."
She fell quickly to rearranging her hair and hat in preparation for the short dash past the doorman and at the end she looked at him and smiled.
"I knew you would come," she said; and as he helped her out he thrilled to the touch of her hand. At odd times before she had seemed old and blasé, but now she was young and all-alive. He dismissed the taxi without a thought of his business and they hurried up to her apartments. She let herself in and as she locked the door behind them she reached up and took his big hat.
"You must stay a while," she said. "The servants are gone and I have no one to protect me if they come to serve the papers. Just start the fire—and if anyone knocks don't let them break down the door."
She smiled again and a sudden giddiness seemed to blind Rimrock and make him doubt where he was. He looked about at the silken rugs and the luxurious hangings on the walls and wondered if it was the same place as before. Even when he lit the laid fire and sank down on a divan he still felt the sweet confusion of a dream; and then she came back, suddenly transformed by a soft house-gown, and looked him questioningly in the face.
"Can you guess," she asked as she sat down beside him, "what it was that he wanted me to do? No, not to betray you or get possession of your stock—all he asked was that I should marry you."
"Marry me!" exclaimed Rimrock and his keen, staring eyes suddenly narrowed as she bowed her head.