then she chatted
another five with Mabel before she attacked the mile of mail upon the
desk in her sitting room.

It was a brief little note; illness and imminent death in his family--he
had time for this line only--and he wanted God to save her kindly and he
was her friend, Michael Daragh. It was the sort of little note, she told
herself, that a thoughtful man would write with the good Mabel in the
back of his mind. She felt a sense of daze and dizziness and she sat with
her hat and cloak on until the dinner gong rent the air, waiting much as
Michael Daragh had waited, long ago, when he had listened for the sound
of the motor, bearing her uptown with Rodney Harrison, and then had torn
up the narrow strip of paper which bore her foolish little postscript.
She took herself resolutely in hand and went briskly down to dinner, and
regaled Mrs. Hills and the music students and the teachers and bank
clerks and elderly, concert-going ladies (one of whom went no more) with
the gay but expurgated text of her conquest of Mexico. There was talk of
Michael Daragh, and one of the younger music students ventured, pinkly,
the theory that Mr. Daragh had been called home to inherit a title.

"Yes," said Jane with quick sympathy, "I shouldn't wonder in the least!
He's always seemed a belted earl sort of person, for all his
other-worldly ways, hasn't he?" It was a relief to talk of him lightly
and easily like this. "Or a Squire, at any rate! Something
picturesque,--something story bookish!"

"Oh," giggled the music student, delighted at her backing, "won't it be
thrilling to get a letter with a crest and be told that he'll never be
back again?"

"Lord Lovel, he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed,----"

chanted Jane, merrily. "I can quite picture him, can't you? Only the
milk-white steed will be immediately hitched to a delivery wagon of his
worldly goods, for distribution to the poor. Yes, that is without doubt
what has happened! I can see adoring yokels pulling their forelocks to
him! He'll fit beautifully into that background!" Thus her tongue,
running ripplingly on, while her heart, suddenly released from its numb
depression, wired her blithe reassurance. "He's coming back,--coming back
to _me_--coming back _soon_!"

The high mood stayed with her, even though the days and weeks slipped by
without word from him. She was entirely happy and confident, but she
found herself too restless to settle down