"Nothing--please go on!" The girl forced a smile. "I'll tell you what's happened--I'll tell you what's happened----"
Murray drove on frowning. Presently Claire spoke, her voice low.
"You'll have to try and understand everything, Doctor Murray; I know that you're a gentleman, and father agrees with me. He isn't an ordinary Chinaman, you know--a coolie. Before the revolution, he went into business. He consolidated a number of antique shops near San Francisco into one big combine, and he's wealthy. But he has so set his heart on doing good to other men who have the opium habit, and helping them to break it, that whoever can approach him in the right way can--can win his trust. Doctor Scudder has done this."
"Ah!" said Murray. "You don't like Scudder, eh?"
"I don't trust him!" exclaimed the girl passionately. "I think he's been deliberately keeping Father under the influence of opium, while pretending to cure him; a doctor can obtain the drug now, you know, and no one else can. Well, this morning I met Doctor Scudder in the hall, and he said something--something I resented, and when I told Father, there was a row. I'll have to be perfectly frank about it, Doctor Murray.
"Doctor Scudder apologized to me and said I had misunderstood him, then he launched a bitter attack on you and said that he meant to prove you were not what you seemed to be at all--that you were engaged in smuggling drugs----"
"I?" exclaimed Murray, then laughed amusedly. "Nonsense!"
"Well, there was a fuss," said the girl. "I hoped that Father might begin to see Doctor Scudder as I saw him; but I don't know--it's terribly hard to tell just what he thinks and does not think, for he seldom says anything. When we were alone, he told me to take that note out to you, and to have you take me to Morongo Valley at once--without any delay."
"And no reason given?" asked Murray, in open astonishment.
"None," she responded. "I thought that perhaps he wanted to get you away from Doctor Scudder, to prevent trouble; but why should I go too? He refused absolutely to explain anything."
Murray reflected that there might be excellent reasons for the girl going too, but that certainly none appeared.
"Well," he said whimsically, "since we're on our way, we might as well go! I certainly am honored and delighted by your company, Miss Lee. I think you're a very wonderful sort of woman, and that your father should send you with me, like this, implies a trust which I shall try to deserve."