Perhaps the page which lay face down was the page of the photograph.  She half longed, half dreaded that a flutter of wind or a passing foot might turn the paper over.  What could the girl have meant by saying, “I hope they won’t be killed?”

Could Angela have read Theo Dene’s mind the day at Santa Barbara, this picture and paragraph would have been less mysterious to her.  “I wonder if Mrs. May knows about the Prince?” Theo had asked herself.

“There’s an English paper on the step,” said Nick, following the direction of her eyes.  “Does it make you homesick?  If it does, I’ll put in a claim to it.  There may be time for you to glance it over before the right stage turns up.”

“No, no,” said Angela, hastily.  “I don’t want the paper.  And oh, look, it says ‘Sentinel’ on this stage that’s coming.”

The next thing she knew, she was swaying between earth and heaven, over heads that surged beneath her.  Somehow, Nick had got that place on the box seat, and he was beside her, resolutely helping Kate on to the high step.  Suddenly, however, Timmy’s covered basket flew open.  Kate had been playing with the cat, and had forgotten to fasten Tim in.  Resenting the confusion, Timmy made a leap, Kate screamed and jumped down from the stage, carrying not only the cat’s basket, but a small dressing-bag of Angela’s—­all she had brought, except a suit-case containing a dress or two for the journey.  Some one else had, of course, scrambled into the coveted seat so miraculously vacated, and the stage, with its full complement of passengers, went swinging down the road, with Kate and Timmy and the dressing-bag left behind.

“Shall we try to stop?” Nick began; but Angela cut him short, her face now as determined as those of the square-chinned girls who had passed triumphantly on their way.  “No!” she said.  “I can’t go through that again!  Kate will have to come on later.”

“There’ll be another ‘Sentinel’ stage in about an hour, I guess,” announced the good-natured driver.  “She’ll be all right.”

“She knows where we’re going,” said Angela.  “She’s a quick-witted girl, and I shan’t worry.  I mean to be happy in spite of everything—­and because of everything!”

So the stage rolled on into the gate of the Yosemite and Kate remained on the veranda of the hotel at El Portal, consoling herself, when she had retrieved Timmy, by looking at the pictures in the Illustrated London News, an old number of a fortnight or three weeks ago.  She found it so interesting and absorbing, one page in particular, that when the next coach bound for the Sentinel Hotel came along, she forgot to fight for a place until it was too late to fight.  There was not another stage bound for that destination until to-morrow.  And to-morrow Mrs. May and Hilliard were going on somewhere else.  Kate could not remember where.

Seeing her dismay, the manager of the hotel took pity on the pretty Irish girl.  “Never mind,” said he.  “You can ’phone from here to the Sentinel.  When your lady arrives there this afternoon, she’ll find your message and know what’s happened.  Then she can ’phone back what she wants you to do.”