“What are you driving at?” she demanded sharply.

“I don’t know myself yet—exactly.”

“Who could have planned our meeting? As you know, I went to Pine Mountain Lodge to be alone. Mr. Morton, not knowing of my presence there or even of my existence, came to Pine Mountain to rest up. We couldn’t help meeting, since the lodge is the only place at which one can stay. That’s all there is to this amazing mystery.”

“Undoubtedly all you see. But the coincidence explanation doesn’t explain everything. Some one may have been behind Jack Morton’s going.”

“Who? In what way? And for what reason?”

[62]“Those are things to be found out.” He looked at her steadily for a moment. “I asked you this before, but I am going to ask it again: why are you here in hiding?”

[62]

“After all, I guess I don’t mind telling you in the least,” she returned coolly, with a sudden perverse gratification in revealing what she knew he could not like in her. Also she felt that here was another detail by which she could make Clifford feel the utter finality of the break between them. “Jack and I came to New York intending to be married the next day. But the very evening of the day we arrived, Jack’s father unexpectedly came to town and appeared at the Biltmore where Jack is staying.”

“Was that before or after the evening I saw you at the Grand Alcazar with Mr. Loveman?”

“You saw me there the evening of the day of my return. Jack was to have had dinner with me that night,” she added, “and had reserved the table and had asked his friend, Mr. Loveman, and then he got tangled up with a friend and could not come. It was that same evening that his father arrived in town. I believe this is simple and clear.”

“As far as it goes. But why did you go into hiding?”

“Isn’t that rather obvious?” she returned with her cool frankness. “Jack and I were going to keep our marriage secret—perhaps for a long time. The appearance of his father, with the announcement that he was going to stay with Jack, naturally delayed[63] our marriage. I insisted that it be postponed until his father was away and there was no danger of immediate discovery.”

[63]

“And Jack?”

“Jack was reckless. He was all for getting married right away. 

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