"She did what she said. Believe me, sir--if I know anything of men and women, you're paying me to run fool's errands for you. _They_ don't need any watching." "You have seen them--kiss?" "Never." "Hold hands?" "I haven't seen any physical demonstration. I guess they like each other a lot. And that's all there is to it." But the "old man" made a scene with her, just such a scene as he would have made if the detective's report had been, in effect, the opposite of what it was. He assumed that she was guilty; but, for dread of scandal, he would not seek a divorce. He exacted a promise that she would not see Arthur, or write to him, or receive letters from him. Then, having agreed with certain magnates to go out to China upon the question of a great railroad and a great loan, he carried her off with him, then and there. So that when Arthur called at the hotel, he was told that they had gone but that there was a note for him. If it was from the wife, the husband had dictated it: Don't try to see me ever any more. If you do, it will only make my life a hell on earth. That had been the tangible end of Arthur's romance. But the intangible ends were infinite and not yet. His whole nature had changed. He had suffered and could no longer bear to inflict pain. He lifted his head and looked up a little slope of snow. Near the top, wonderfully rosy and smiling, sat his culprit sisters. He had forgotten why he had come. He smiled in his sudden embarrassment. "Don't shoot, colonel," called Gay, "and we'll come down." "Promise, then," he said, "that you'll never be naughty again." "We promise," they said. And they trudged back to camp, with jokes and laughter and three very sharp appetites. VI Beyond seeing to it that the alluring picture of his sisters should not appear in any future issues of the magazines, Arthur did not refer to the matter again. The girls, more particularly Lee and Gay, always attributed the instant success of The Camp to the picture; but it is sanely possible that an inn run upon such very extravagant principles was bound to be a success anyway. America is full of people who will pay anything for the comforts of home with the cares and exasperations left out. A majority of the early applications received at The Camp office, and politely rejected by Maud, were from old friends of the family, who were eagerly willing to give its fallen finances a boost. But the girls were determined that their scheme should stand upon its own meritorious feet or not at all. * * * * * When Samuel Langham learned that the ice was going out of New Moon Lake, he wrote that he would arrive at Carrytown at such and such an hour, and begged that a boat of some sort might be there to meet him. His guests, he explained, would follow in a few days.