e picture was finished. Bertram awoke then to his
surroundings. He found summer was upon him with no plans made for its
enjoyment. He found William had started West for a two weeks' business
trip. But what he did not find one day--at least at first--was his wife,
when he came home unexpectedly at four o'clock. And Bertram especially
wanted to find his wife that day, for he had met three people whose
words had disquieted him not a little. First, Aunt Hannah. She had said:

"Bertram, where is Billy? She hasn't been out to the Annex for a week;
and the last time she was there she looked sick. I was real worried
about her."

Cyril had been next.

"Where's Billy?" he had asked abruptly. "Marie says she hasn't seen her
for two weeks. Marie's afraid she's sick. She says Billy didn't look
well a bit, when she did see her."

Calderwell had capped the climax. He had said:

"Great Scott, Henshaw, where have you been keeping yourself? And where's
your wife? Not one of us has caught more than a glimpse of her for
weeks. She hasn't sung with us, nor played for us, nor let us take her
anywhere for a month of Sundays. Even Miss Greggory says _she_ hasn't
seen much of her, and that Billy always says she's too busy to go
anywhere. But Miss Greggory says she looks pale and thin, and that _she_
thinks she's worrying too much over running the house. I hope she isn't
sick!"

"Why, no, Billy isn't sick. Billy's all right," Bertram had answered. He
had spoken lightly, nonchalantly, with an elaborate air of carelessness;
but after he had left Calderwell, he had turned his steps abruptly and a
little hastily toward home.

And he had not found Billy--at least, not at once. He had gone first
down into the kitchen and dining-room. He remembered then, uneasily,
that he had always looked for Billy in the kitchen and dining-room, of
late. To-day, however, she was not there.

On the kitchen table Bertram did see a book wide open, and,
mechanically, he picked it up. It was a much-thumbed cookbook, and it
was open where two once-blank pages bore his wife's handwriting. On
the first page, under the printed heading "Things to Remember," he read
these sentences:

"That rice swells till every dish in the house is full, and that spinach
shrinks till you can't find it.

"That beets boil dry if you look out the window.

"That biscuits which look as if they'd been mixed up with a rusty stove
poker haven't really been so, but have only got too much