What was it waked her? She sat up suddenly in the dark. Her lamp was out. Dim moonlight made a gray square of her window, and as she stared at it, there came once more the rattle of gravel against the glass—then a low, guarded whistle. The house was still. It must be some time in the small hours. She didn’t dare strike a match to look at her watch. She stole across and peered out between the curtains. Over there by the cottonwoods that gave the place its name—wasn’t that a mounted man in their shadow? Pearse! It must be. It couldn’t be any one else! She waved a hasty signal, then slipped over, got her own door open as silently as she could, and hurried down stairs. As she struggled with the fastening of the front door, she was desperately afraid he might have been there longer than she knew—be discouraged—leave without seeing her. But she’d waved to him from the window. She thought he answered. Oh—the door gave at last, but noisily. She crossed the court on winged feet; some one caught her in a rough embrace. A face was pushed down against hers. Some one whispered, “You made a lot of noise getting out, girlie. Where’s your bag?” She drew back, bewildered, scared, answering mechanically: “It’s upstairs.” “Well—for the Lord’s sake!” That wasn’t Pearse’s voice—even in a whisper Hilda knew it wasn’t. She’d known this wasn’t Pearse as soon as he touched her. Who was it? Who did he think she was? She tried to pull free. As her head went back, her eye caught the row of upper windows. The resurrection plant changed from Maybelle’s sill to her own—the gravel on the pane—she’d blundered into some arrangement of Maybelle’s! “I’m not—” she began; but the man’s fierce whisper interrupted, “Shut up—whoever you are! Do you want to give the whole thing away?” His grip on her arm dragged her back into the shadow. She saw a light flash up and go out in Maybelle’s room, the movement of a window-curtain there. The man beside her saw it, too. But now there was noise in the house. He loosed his hold on her arm and backed away toward his pony. Hilda stood where she was and looked while the house over there became all lit up. What should she do? Slowly she went toward the side door, and, as she stood hesitating there, some one tore it open and stood in it—Colonel Lee Marchbanks, a bathrobe pulled on over his night-clothes. “What the devil’s this?” “Oh, Hilda!” That was Mrs. Marchbanks, following him, getting ahead of him and taking hold of her. Fayte came from somewhere. Miss Ferguson was on the porch. The lights from the windows flickered over their faces. The sound of galloping hoofs came from the trail—two ponies, plainly. “Who were those people?” the colonel demanded. “Only one people, I guess,” Fayte explained jeeringly, when she didn’t answer. “Masters brought a led pony for her.” “Masters? Was that Pearse Masters?” “Let me pass, Colonel Marchbanks.” Hilda pushed by, the rest of them trailing after her.