difficult smile.

It was Jean's usual custom to accompany her friend downstairs at the end
of each visit, linking arms, and standing long in the hall as one item
of news after another presented itself for discussion; but to-day she
rang the bell for a maid, and made her adieux at the drawing-room door;
the most careless and perfunctory of adieux to the man, to the girl a
kiss, and an eloquent grip of the hand. Edith was her friend, a friend
of years' standing; and Jean, for all her flirtatious nature, was loyal
to her sex. The last thing she would wish to do would be to annex
another girl's lover. Nevertheless it was with a sigh and an unusual
sense of depression that she re-entered the drawing-room. Vanna was
standing by the sofa in the corner, looking down on the carved oak
table. Jean's eyes followed hers, and her heart gave a sudden,
startling leap. The bowl of roses was untouched, but the table was
bare, the faded bud had disappeared!

CHAPTER FIVE.

JEAN RUNS AWAY.

The next day Jean displayed an inexplicable unwillingness to accept
Edith Morton's invitation to dinner. All morning she affected to expect
a letter announcing a cancelling of the plan. When afternoon came and
no letter arrived, she fell back upon the usual feminine subterfuge.

"I think," she announced thoughtfully, "I'm almost sure, I have a
headache!"

The two girls were seated alone in the upstairs boudoir, and anything
less suffering than Jean's appearance would have been difficult to
imagine. Vanna smiled, and put an incredulous question:

"Poor, puzzled darling. It is trying for you. How do you manage to
decide these knotty points?"

For answer Jean ducked her head, and shook it violently from side to
side. This singular process over, she raised a flushed, sparkling face,
and pronounced slowly:

"Yes, it does; I can feel it. I can always tell when I do that."

Vanna's clear laugh rang out mockingly. To one who knew what it was to
suffer from prostrating headache, which made it impossible to move, to
speak, almost to breathe, the sight of Jean's ducked, shaking head was
irresistibly comic. She brushed aside the frail pretence.

"My dear, it's no use. I see through you. Better confess at once. You
don't want to go. Why?"

Jean looked at her in silence. Her eyes dilated, the colour paled on
the rounded cheeks. It was pretence no longer, but real unaffected
earnest.

"Vanna, he frightens me--that Robert Glo