g, a billow of black smoke rolled into the
room. He went quickly through the bedroom and the bath, calling
"Sheila" in a low, uncertain voice, returned to the sitting-room to
find the air already pungent and hot. There was a paper pinned up on
the mantel. Sheila's writing marched across it. Dickie rubbed the smoke
from his eyes and read:

"I am going away from Millings. And I am not coming back. Amelia may have
the things I have left. I don't want them."

This statement was addressed to no one.

"She has gone to New York," thought Dickie. His confused mind became
possessed with the immediate purpose of following her. There was an
Eastern train in the late afternoon. Only he must have money and it
was--most of it--in his room. He dashed back. The passage was ablaze; his
room roared like the very heart of a furnace. It was no use to think of
getting in there. Well, he had something in his pocket, enough to start
him. He plunged, choking, into Sheila's sitting-room again. For some
reason this flight of hers had brought back his hope. There was to be a
beginning, a fresh start, a chance.

He went over to the chair where Sheila had sat in the comfort, of his
arms and he touched the piece of tapestry on its back. That was his
good-bye to Millings. Then he fastened his collar, smoothed his hair,
standing close before Sheila's mirror, peering and blinking through the
smoke, and buttoned his coat painstakingly. There would be a hat
downstairs. As he turned to go he saw a little brown leather book lying
on the floor below the mantel. He picked it up. Here was something he
could take to Sheila. With an impulse of tenderness he opened it. His
eyes were caught by a stanza--

"The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven--"

There are people, no doubt, who will not be able to believe this truthful
bit of Dickie's history. The smoke was drifting across him, the roar of
the nearing fire was in his ears, he was at a great crisis in his
affairs, his heart was hot with wounded love, and his brain hot with
whiskey and with hope. Nevertheless, he did now, under the spell of those
printed words, which did not even remotely resemble any words that he had
ever read or heard before, forget the smoke, the roar, the love, the
hope, and, standing below Sheila's mirror, he did read "The Blesse