with
icy fans, beat against her brain. The damnable stolidity of the door
enraged her, and, when she knocked its impassiveness made her numb and
sick. Her heart was wilting in a frost, and, as the last cold ache died
away in oblivion, arrows of flame would horribly restore it to life and
agony. She rang the bells again, one after another; she rang them slowly
in studied permutations; quickly and savagely she pressed them all
together with the length of her forearm. The cherubs on the carved porch
turned to demons, and from demons vanished into nothing. The palings on
either side of the steps became invalid, unsubstantial, deliquescent
like material objects in a nightmare. A catastrophe of all emotion
collapsed about her mind, and when gladly she seemed to be fainting,
Jenny heard the voice of Castleton a long way off.

"Oh, Fuz, where is he? Where's Maurice?"

"Why, I thought you were meeting him. I've been out all day."

Then Jenny realized the door was still shut.

"He wasn't there. Not at Waterloo."

She was walking slowly upstairs now beside Castleton. The fever of
disappointment had left her, and outwardly tranquil, she was able to
explain her reeling agitation. The studio looked cavernously empty;
already on the well-remembered objects lay a web of dust. The jars still
held faded pink tulips. The fragments of The Tired Dancer still littered
the grate.

"Wait a minute," Castleton said; "I'll see if there's a letter for me
downstairs."

Presently he came back with a sheet of crackling paper.

"Shall I read you what he says?"

Jenny nodded, and, while he read, wrote with her finger, "3.30
Claybridge," many times in the dust that lay thick on the closed lid of
the piano.

This was the letter:

Dear Castleton,

I've settled not to come back to England for a while. One makes
plans and the plans don't come off. I can't work in England and am
better out of it. Let me hear that Jenny is all right. I think she
will be. I didn't write to her. I just sent a post card saying I
should not be at Waterloo on the first of May. I expect you'll
think I'm heartless, but something has gone snap inside me and I
don't honestly care what you think. I'm going to Morocco in two or
three days. I want adventures. I'll send you a check for my share
of the rent in June. If you write, write to me at the English Post
Office, Tangiers.

Yours,

Maurice Avery.