the arm of God around you to know the exact degree of
disappointment that swelled in Linda's heart when she answered
the telephone early Saturday morning and heard Donald Whiting's
strained voice speaking into it. He was talking breathlessly in
eager, boyish fashion.

"Linda, I am in a garage halfway downtown," he was saying, "and
it looks to me as if to save my soul I couldn't reach you before
noon. I have had the darnedest luck. Our Jap got sick last week
and he sent a new man to take his place. There wasn't a thing
the matter with our car when I drove it in Friday night. This
morning Father wanted to use it on important business, and it
wouldn't run. He ordered me to tinker it up enough to get it to
the shop. I went at it and when it would go, I started You can
imagine the clip I was going, and the thing went to pieces. I
don't know yet how it comes that I saved my skin. I'm pretty
badly knocked out, but I'll get there by noon if it's a possible
thing."

"Oh, that's all right," said Linda, fervently hoping that the
ache in her throat would not tincture her voice.

It was half-past eleven when Donald came. Linda could not bring
herself to give up the sea that day. She found it impossible to
drive the King's Highway. It seemed equally impossible not to
look on the face of the ocean, so she compromised by skirting
Santa Monica Bay, and taking the foothill road she ran it to the
north end of the beach drive. When they had spread their
blankets on the sand, finished their lunch and were resting,
Linda began to question Donald about what had happened. She