Outside her door Pen found Betty waiting expectantly.

“Bobbie gave us a nickel apiece not to disturb you,” she began glibly. “She said you had a headache last night. And father’s come home and brought a man with him. And mother’s coming soon.”

Pen found herself only languidly interested in these announcements. She listened distraitly to the prattle of the children who surrounded her while she was served with toast and coffee.

“Father and the man are motoring around the ranch,” said Francis, “but they will be back to lunch.”

This roused her to the extent of making a more elaborate toilet than usual. She came into the library shortly before the luncheon hour, clad in one of the gowns she had taken from the trunk Marta had brought, her hair done with exquisite care.

“Why, Aunty Pen!” cried Betty. “You look so different. You look grown up.”

“I am, Betty,” she said gravely.

“Miss Pen!” exclaimed Kingdon, coming forward. “Our hills have gotten in their curative powers speedily. I was afraid you were of the lily family, but I see you are a bud of the rose.”

While she was replying to his banter, Kurt came into the room. She felt a little feminine thrill of pleasure in his look of unspoken admiration.

“I left my guest, Mr. Hebler, down at the stables,” continued Kingdon. “Billy, run down and tell him it is nearly time for luncheon. I made a new acquaintance while I was away,” he explained to Pen. “Bruce Hebler. I persuaded him to stop off on his way out to California.”

Pen’s eyes dilated slightly, and the color left her face, as she made some excuse for leaving the room. Kurt followed, intercepting her in the hallway.

“This Hebler is some one you have met before?” he asked, looking at her keenly.

“Yes; did I show it so plainly? I don’t want to see him, or let him know I am here.”

“You are afraid of him?”

“Y-e-s.”

“He has some power over you—the power to take you away?”

“Yes; a power prior to yours.”

“A legal one?”

“Yes.”

“You can keep to your room,” he said reassuringly. “That is, for the afternoon. Westcott has invited Mr. Kingdon and this man to dinner and for cards afterward. You can easily stay away from the breakfast room in the morning. I think he is going to leave in a day or so. I’ll think up some excuse for your not appearing.”

“Oh!” she said whimsically. “You will—lie for me?”

He flushed.

“I want Mrs. Kingdon to be your custodian—not this man.”

“So do I,” she said. “But I forget I am in custody up here.”

“I am wondering,” he said in a troubled tone, “how we can prevent the children from speaking of you before this man? And Kingdon, too, is sure to mention your name.”

“Oh, that will do no harm. He won’t know whom they mean. He doesn’t know me by my own name. I told you I had a great many convenient aliases. Remember?”

“Yes,” he replied shortly. “I remember.”

She went to her room, and presently Marta came in with her luncheon, some books and a message of sympathy from Kingdon. In spite of these distractions, time dragged and it was with a sigh of relief that she saw Kingdon and his guest motoring toward Westcott’s.

“Poor old Hebby! Just as hawk-nosed and lynx-eyed as ever. The last place he’d think of looking for me would be behind these curtains. It’s worth being a prisoner for an afternoon to know I have eluded him once more.”

When she came down to dinner, Kurt was again visibly impressed by her appearance. She wore another of her recently acquired gowns, a black one of sheer filmy material. Her hair, rippling back from her brows, was coiled low. Her face was pale and yet young and flowerlike. There was a new touch of wistfulness about her—a charm of repose, almost of dignity.

Later, when the children had gone upstairs, she went into the dimly lighted sitting-room and sat down at the piano, touching softly and lightly the notes of a minor melody, an erratic little air rising and falling in a succession of harmonies.

“Pen!”

She turned exquisite eyes to Kurt’s ardent gaze.

“I like you in this dress. I didn’t know dress could so alter a person.” There was the tone of unrepressed admiration in his voice.

“Hebby is right,” she thought with a fleeting smile. “He said there was something very effective about black to men—especially to men who know nothing about clothes.”

“I must ask you something,” he continued, speaking in troubled tone. “This man Hebler—does he know—”

She stopped playing.

“He knows me as you know me, as the thief, and he knows—something else about me.”

Her fingers again found their way to the keys.

Reluctantly he found himself succumbing to the witchery of her plaintive tone and her quivering lips. Then he rallied and said relentlessly.

“Something worse?”

“Is there anything worse than stealing?” she asked artlessly. “His acquaintance with me is not exactly of a personal nature. He admits but one of my shortcomings—that he never knows where to find me—literally. He’d think so more than ever if he could see me now.”

“Does he love you?”

She stopped playing, rose from the piano bench and with an odd little laugh, crossed the room to the window seat. He followed.

“Hebby love me? Well, no! There have been times when I think he positively hated me. But I wish he hadn’t come. He brings up—unpleasant memories.”

“Then let’s talk of something pleasant—very pleasant. About Marta, Jo’s Marta. I met them together yesterday. I had my answer to the question I asked you.”

“They are very happy,” she said wistfully. “I am so glad.”

“Pen, why did you make me think, that first day I met you, that it was you Jo met and loved in Chicago?”

“Did I make you think so? You assumed I was the one and I—well, I wouldn’t have presumed to dispute the assertion of anyone in a sheriff line. It’s safer not.”

“You asked me not to be hard on little Marta. Who could be? Not even the man you seem to think me to be. I’ll do all in my power to help them to build a little home in the hills. And she does love him.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “She does.”

He looked at her with a little ache in his throat. The moonlight was full on her partly averted face; her profile, clear-cut, delicate, was like a medallion.

“Pen—could you love me?”

The words seemed wrung from him in spite of an apparent determination not to utter them.

She turned and looked straight into his eyes.

“That isn’t what you should ask me, unless, you—”

“I do,” he said passionately.

“You didn’t—want to.”

“No; frankly, I didn’t want to; but I did—I do.”

“Why?” she asked curiously, watching the fine little lines about his eyes deepen.

“I’ve been fighting it since I met you—because—”

“Because I am a thief,” she finished unconcernedly. “Do you remember that night when we were here alone—you started to tell me you loved me, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted slowly.

“Then you remembered what I was, and your love wasn’t big enough to let you finish.”

“That wasn’t the reason I hesitated,” he said quickly, “then or—other times. The reason I didn’t yield to my desire was because I knew it wouldn’t be fair to Jo. Remember, I thought until Marta came that you were his.”

She looked her discomfiture.

“I forgot that,” she said in a low sympathetic tone.

“No;” he resumed meditatively. “You don’t know what a man’s love is.”

“A man’s love,” she replied, a slight catch in her voice, “is infinitesimal compared to a woman’s.”

“Let me show you, Pen. You shall love me! We’ll go far away from here—”

“You’re ashamed of me! Jo wouldn’t ask Marta to go far away. Your’s is a little love—a love that doesn’t dare venture on an uncharted sea.”

“Pen,” he said tensely, “I tell you that I love you! Don’t you understand?”

He put his arm about her—bent down.

There was a quiet reproach in her star-like eyes as she drew away.

“Pen, will you be my wife?”

She put her hand to her forehead with an odd little motion. Her paleness became a pallor.

“You ask me that—you would—”

“Yes, I would. I did fight it. I didn’t really know you until to-night. You’ve been unreadable. Now I feel you are your real self. Not the daredevil who defied me and mocked me. Not the little meek mouse on the hearth. I love the woman you are to-night.”

“Am I like her—the best woman in the world?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he cried triumphantly. “And you will grow more and more like her—the type of woman I want you to be. Don’t you care for me—a little, Pen?”

Again his arm was about her. She turned to meet his eyes, deep-set—intense—burning.

“Kurt—I—”

A little wave of doubt, of contrition, stole over her.

“I don’t love you,” she said uncomfortably.

“Don’t you want to love me, Pen?”

“No!”

She rose impulsively, and there were tears in her eyes, though there was a half wistful smile on her lips, as she passed him swiftly and fled toward the stairway.

He followed.

“You mustn’t leave me, this way. Pen—”

For a shining second she leaned against him.

“I must. I can’t tell you now. I’ll think it over. You surely want me to be honest with you!”

In the upper hall she passed the open door of Hebler’s room. There were no inner lights, but the shafts of a moonbeam shone straight upon an article lying on a small table near the door, finding response in glimmering gleams.

She stopped, electrified.

“Oh!”

Fascinated by the sparkle, she lingered for a moment, and then went quickly to her room and straight to the window that looked on the moonlit hills. She stayed there awhile, her hands clenched, thinking intensely and rapidly—of Larry soaring like an eagle, proud and secure in his conquering of the air—of Marta’s sudden severance from the habit of a lifetime—of Jo’s faith in her—of Kurt wrestling with his conflict between love and conventions. “Does he care, really, as much as he thinks he does,” she wondered, “or is it just the lure of—propinquity? How shall I find out? Oh, there is too much on my mind! How careless and how like Hebby to leave his priceless ring about. What would he think if he knew the thief was next door to it?”

She left the window and went to the door.

The ring still sent forth shafts of sparkles.

A figure came stealthily out into the hall, paused near the open door. A hand reached quickly out and closed over the ring.