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As he spoke, he caught up Sally’s case, and gave it a mighty swing from the tonneau to the front seat. In mid-flight, the suit-case opened. Jars and powders, slippers and beribboned apparel scattered in every direction. Small silver articles, undeniably feminine in nature, lay on the grass; a spangled scarf which they had all admired on Sally’s slender shoulders had to be tenderly extricated from the brake.

With shrieks of laughter, the Bevis family righted the case and repacked it. Sally was frozen with anger.

“Mother SAID she knew you two would run off and get married quietly some day!” said pretty, audacious Mary Bevis.

“Dearie!” protested her mother. “I only said–I only thought–I said I thought–Mary, that’s very naughty of you! Sally, you know how innocently one surmises an engagement, or guesses at things!”

“Oh, mother, you’re getting in deeper and deeper!” said her older son. “Never you mind, Sally! You can elope if you want to!”

“San Rafael’s the place to go, Sally,” said Mary. “All the elopers get married there. The court-house, you know. No delays about licenses!”

“They’re very naughty,” said their mother, beginning to see how unwelcome this joking was to the visitors. “Are you going straight home, dear?”

“Straight home!” said the doctor.

“Well, speaking of San Rafael,” pursued the matron, kindly–“can’t you two and Elsie and Ferd go with us all to-night, say about an hour from now, up to Pastori’s and have dinner?”

“Oh, thanks!” said Sally, trying to smile naturally. “I’m afraid not to-night. I’ve got a headache, and I’m going home to turn in.”

Amid cheerful good-bys, she wheeled the car, and drove it along rapidly, pursuing thoughts of the Bevis boys hardly short of murderous. The doctor was silent; but Sally, glancing at him, saw his quiet smile change to an apologetic look, and hated both the smile and the apology.

They went more slowly on the steep road from the water front to the hillside. The level light of the sinking sun shone brilliantly on daisies and nasturtiums at the roadside. Boats, riding at anchor, dipped in the wash of another incoming steamer. Dr. Bates hummed; but Sally frowned, and he was immediately hushed.

“Boy looking for you?” he said presently, as a small and dusty boy rose from a boulder at one side of the road and shouted something unintelligible.

“Why, I guess he is for me!” said Sally, in the first natural tone she had used that afternoon.

But the boy, upon being interrogated, said that the telegram was for “the doc that was visiting up to Miss Sally’s house.”

Dr. Bates read the little message several times, and absently dismissed the messenger with a coin, which Sally thought outrageously large, and a muttered worried word or two.

“Bad news?” she asked.

“In a way,” he said quickly. “When’s the next train for San Rafael, Miss Sally? I’ve got to be there to-night–right away! Do we have to stand here? Thank you. There’s a case Field and I have been watching; he says that there’s got to be an operation at eight–” His voice trailed off into troubled silence, and he drew out his watch. “Eight!” he muttered. “It’s on seven now!”

“Oh, and you have to operate–horrible for you!” said Sally, taking the car skilfully toward the railroad station as she spoke. “But I don’t see how you CAN! You’ve missed the six-thirty train, and there’s not another until after nine. But you can wire Dr. Field that you will be there the first thing in the morning.”

The doctor paid no attention.

“The livery stable is closed, I suppose?” he asked.

“Oh, long ago!”

He ruminated frowningly. Suddenly his face cleared.

“Funny how one thinks of the right solution last!” he said in relief. “How long would it take you to run me up there? Forty minutes?”

“I don’t see how I could,” said Sally, flushing. “I can take the car home, though, and ask Ferd to do it. But that woman’s at the hotel, isn’t she? I couldn’t go up there and sit outside, with every one I knew coming out and wondering why I brought you instead of Ferd! Elsie wouldn’t like it. You must see–“