to inject a casual note into his voice as he asked:
"When is it you start, Nan, on this adventure of yours?"
Nan touched the dainty ear-tips of her "blue ribboner" with her riding crop and endeavored to reply with equal nonchalance. "The day after to-morrow."
"And you won't consider letting me hover in the vicinity at a protecting distance?"
"0h, no," she refused quickly. "That would spoil it, and besides, anything of the sort really would make people talk."
"I suppose so," he admitted ruefully. "But, Nan"—he turned to her earnestly—"will you promise me one thing! Will you promise that if you need some one, if things don't turn out just as you anticipate, if the people you meet do not prove to be exactly what they seem, if anything at all goes wrong, you will let me know? Will you send me word at once?"
"Yes, Bob, I'll promise that."
"There's one thing. Nan." He looked at her approvingly with his grave, gray eyes. "No person with an atom of intelligence
