But he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Gloria, and for the moment all thoughts of Gaynor or a message fled from his mind. Again she was as pale as death; she caught at the back of the chair which had served her thus before; she lifted to King eyes sick with terror.
"I haven't got the straight of things very well," King said to her, speaking very gently. For in his heart he was thinking: "Poor little kid! She's only a kid of a girl and she's pretty near the breaking-point, from the look of things, and small wonder." But aloud he continued: "Only one thing seems clear. You are tired half to death and worried the other half. I wouldn't let myself think of that snake Gratton or his poison drippings. Things will work out all right." He managed a smile of a sort, the first smile to-night, and added: "They always do, you know."
"Do they?" she asked listlessly. And she, too, forced a smile, so wan and bleak that it came close to putting a dash of tears into King's eyes.
"For one thing," he said brusquely, "I'll bet you haven't had a bite to eat since you got here; have you?" She shook her head; she hadn't thought of such a thing as eating. When had she eaten last? Not since she and Gratton, motoring up from San Francisco, had stopped at the wayside lunch-counter? Perhaps that was why this giddy faintness troubled her, why the blood drummed in her ears.
"You'll sit right down," commanded King. "Or lie down is better. In two shakes I'll have something ready for you."
"You are so good to me." That came straight from Gloria's heart; her eyes shone with a gratitude which struck him as far beyond proportion to the small deed of the moment. "I'll go upstairs a moment; papa's message----"
"It can wait ten minutes."
"Let me get it now. I--I will lie down in my room until you call me, if you want me to."
"That's good." He watched her go slowly upstairs and then hastened to the kitchen. He got a wood fire going in the range, scouted for coffee, found a glass jar of bacon, a tin of milk, all kinds of canned goods. And meantime, though occupied with much speculation concerning all that had happened to-night and must have happened before and might happen in the future, he never for an instant entirely forgot Gloria and how pitifully borne down she looked. Gratton had tricked her some way, had coerced her, had come close to breaking her utterly. And yet her indomitable spirit had in the end triumphed over Gratton's scheming; King would never forget how her voice had rung out in that fearless "No! No and no and no!"