"I am afraid," he began, talking swiftly, "that I have been instrumental in placing you in a false position. Last night I told you I had telephoned to your mother. I did try; they reported the line out of order. What could I do? I didn't want to alarm you. It was only a lark; I meant innocently, you know that, don't you, Gloria?"
"Did you?" she said, and managed to keep her lips smiling.
"It is only since coming here that I have realized how things will look; what people will think--and say, curse them. Our being out so long together; my buying clothing for you----"
"Our being registered as Mr. and Mrs. Gratton----"
His eyes burned, his lips clamped tight.
"Forgive me, Gloria! It was the mad impulse of a moment. I thought as we went in that it would look strange--a young, unmarried couple; that if I put down man and wife no one would think anything at all. And we'd be gone in a few hours; and probably you'd never go back there; and no one would know who you were."
"I see." Gloria's tone, devoid of expression, gave no clue to her racing thoughts. "You did that for my sake!"
"Yes," he said eagerly. "As I would do anything on earth for your sake. You know that, Gloria; you know, and have known for a long time--always--that I love you. I was going to ask you soon to--to marry me, Gloria. And now, now you will marry me, won't you?"
"Yes." But Gloria did not say it aloud; not yet. She merely made it perfectly clear to Miss Gloria Gaynor that she was going to marry Gratton, and that there was to be no further question of it. And, oh, God! at this fateful moment, how she hated him! How she loathed and detested him! While a week ago--yesterday--she had wondered, dreamily, if she were in love with him! But that was when he was in the city, at home in his own wilderness. But now! She was in a trap. This man had made it, cunningly using in his work all that he knew of Gloria Gaynor. There was no way out, save through the gate of matrimony. And--in her heart she laughed at him--through that other wider gate beyond, the gate of divorce. She would accept his name; the name of Gratton stood high in San Francisco. Then she would tell him how she loathed him; she would laugh at him, for physically she had no fear of him. And he would never have her for his own, despite all of his money and his position and his hideous trickery. Gratton, with all of his shrewdness, had not taken into consideration one thing: how in the city, on his native heath, he attracted Gloria; how in the woods he impressed her, in his unbecoming outdoor togs, as contemptible.