w that the smoke was thickening she believed 杭州足疗店最多的在哪里he would soon leave for the settlement.

She noticed how hot and sultry it had grown in the last hour. Scarcely a breath of air was stirring, and in the middle of the afternoon Adette Clamart insisted that she go with her for a swim down in the inlet. While they were in the water Peter came up from the lake in a boat. His sail was down and he was rowing. Adette Clamart covered her pretty eyes with her two hands while he bent over to kiss Mona, and in that moment he whispered, “I want to see you in the cabin.” He was acting strangely, Mona thought.

杭州品茶工作室 A few minutes later she joined him in the cabin.

“Dad is better,” Peter said. “But tonight I’m going to get him away—somewhere. I’m afraid of the fire. With a bad wind it would be on us in an hour or two. Right now I want to take some supplies over to Aleck Curry. Then I’ll come back 杭州洗浴按摩服务 and see you before I return to dad. There’s a little breeze on the lake, and I can make the island in an hour. Have you seen Carter?”

[247]

“This morning. He hasn’t been here since then.”

“And Simon?”

“He is gone, too.”

She got a bundle she had prepared and said good-by to Peter but not until he had promised to return directly from the island by way of the inlet. She watched him until he disappeared in the gray haze that hung over the water, and then looked at the clock to mark the time he would be returning. Scarcely had she done this when a 杭州419论坛 figure stalked past one of the windows. Instantly she recognized it as Simon McQuarrie. He went straight to his cabin, entered it and closed the door. And Carter was not with him!

Her heart throbbed as she went outside, determined to follow him. But something held her back. Then she forced herself to follow her first impulse, and a moment later was knocking at Simon’s door. There was no answer. She persisted, knocking loudly and calling his name, and still there was no response. Then she tried the door and found it locked. Where there had been fear in her breast there was now conviction. The tiger in the old Scotchman had been at work, and in his own way—and the only way—he had solved the great problem of her life and Peter’s, and had made the world free again for his old friend Donald McRae. He had rid the island of Aleck Curry, and 杭州桑拿哪好 had done away with Carter. And now he wanted to be alone—alone in his cabin!

Not for a moment did she question the reasonableness[248] of her conviction. It seized upon her like a many-tentacled thing, choking back her doubt and overwhelming her with its certainty. It made her steal pantingly to the edge of the forest, and then to the beginning of the long finger of spruce and cedar that reached away out to the entrance of Middle Finger Inlet. Half an hour later she was on the sand and gravel beach under the big cliff, waiting for Peter’s return. And now she noticed a change in the wind. Loose tresses of her hair blew seaward. That meant the fire would come over the

ridges!

In another quarter of an hour she could scarcely see the farther side of Middle Finger Inlet. A black pall of smoke