is means he
can't get here!"

"Drat the lad!" his aunt said mildly. "What has he got to say?"

Julia pulled out a hairpin to open the letter, her face a little
puzzled. She unfolded three pages of large paper closely written.

"Why, I don't understand this," said she. "Jimmy writes such short
letters!"

And immediately fear, like cold iron, entered her heart, and she felt a
chill of distaste for the letter; she did not want to read it, she
wished she might fling it on the ere, and rid her hands of the horrible
thing.

"It _is_ Jim, isn't it?" Miss Toland said, with a sharp look. "Is he
coming?"

"I don't know," Julia said, hardly above a whisper.

"Anything wrong?" Miss Toland asked, instantly alert.

"No, I don't suppose so!" Julia said, trying to laugh. "But--but I hate
him to just send a letter when I expected _him_!" she added childishly.

She picked it up, and began slowly to read it. Miss Toland, watching
her, saw the muscles of her face harden, and her eyes turn to steel. The
blood rushed to her face, and then receded quickly. She read to the last
word, and then looked up to meet the other woman's eyes.

"What _is_ it?" Miss Toland demanded, aghast at Julia's look.

"It's Jim," said Julia. Her face was blazing again, and she seemed to be
choking. "He's going to Europe," she went on, in a bewildered tone,
"he's not coming back."

"_What_!" said Miss Toland sharply. "D'you mean to tell me he's simply
walked off--"

Julia's colour was ghastly; her eyes looked sick and heavy.

"No, no, he can't mean that!" she said quickly. She crushed the pages of
the letter together convulsively. "I can't--" she began, and stopped.
Suddenly she rose to her feet, muttered something about coming back, and
was gone.

She ran up to her room, and alone there, it seemed for a few moments as
if she must suffocate. She put the letter on her desk, where its folded
sheets instantly looked hideously familiar. She went into the bathroom,
and found herself holding her fingers under the hot-water tap, vaguely
waiting for hot water. Like a hunted creature she went through the
luxurious rooms, the mortal wound in her heart widening every instant;
finally she came back to her desk, and sat down, and read the letter
again.

"Dear Julia," wrote Jim, "I have been thinking and thinking about this
affair, and I cannot stand it. I am going away. Atkins is going to
Berlin for a three months' course under Hofner and Braun, and I am goi