At sight of the wheel marks the senator’s wife spoke again.

“You have been up here before?”

“Yes, once; in the middle of the summer.”

“There is a small hotel at the head of the road.”

“I know; but it is closed.”

“It has been reopened—­please throttle the motor so it won’t make so much noise—­the hotel is occupied now, as I say, and that is where we shall find your father.  Are you still willing to do as I tell you to?”

“In all things reasonable.”

“As if I’d ask you to do anything unreasonable!” she broke out half-petulantly.  “Listen; there is a lawn with a circular driveway in front of the hotel.  Drive to the outer edge, near the cliff, and stop the car.”

Five minutes later he had obeyed his instructions literally.  Through the groving of trees on the lawn he could see the lights in the lower story of the inn.  At the flicking of the motor-switch a man with a pair of lineman’s climbing spurs at his belt rose up out of the shadows and touched his cap to the lady, saying:  “The boss is here; he has just gone in.”

“I know,” was the low-toned response.  And then to Evan:  “Help me out, please.”

When they stood together beside the car she spoke again to the lineman.

“Is it all right, Jackson?  Can you do what I asked you to?”

“We can try it a whirl,” said the man; and thereupon he led the way across the lawn, around to the darkened end of the bungalow-built resort house, and through a sheltering pergola to a side door.  “I got hold of the key, and it’s open,” he signified, meaning the door.  “Can you find your way in the dark on the inside?”

“Perfectly,” was the whispered reply; and then the lineman guide got his further orders:  “Go back to the car and see that nobody interferes with it, Jackson.”  Then, when the man had disappeared in the tree shadows, the little lady turned short upon Blount.  “I am going to take you where you can see and hear, but you must promise me not to interfere unless it becomes perfectly plain that your father needs you.  Is it a bargain?”

“It is—­if you’ll allow me to be the judge of the need.”

She laughed softly.  “You are simply incorrigible, and I should think there would be times when Patricia would be tempted to stick pins into you,” she mocked.  Then:  “Come on; we are wasting time,” and, entering the house, she took his hand and led him through a dark passage, up a stair, through another passage into a long, low-pitched room, bare and empty save for a great pyramid of dining-tables and chairs piled in the middle of it, and lastly through a cautiously opened door which admitted a flood of yellow lamp-light from below.

“The musicians’ gallery,” she whispered.  “Go to the screen and look down, but for Heaven’s sake, don’t make any noise!”