had to
face. Moreover, she had learned what she had come for, and the obvious
thing to do now was to go home and reflect. So, without further
ceremony, she walked to the door and opened it, and turned again with
her hand on the knob. "Look here, Tom Gaylord," she said, "if you tell
Austen I was here, I'll never forgive you. I don't believe you've got
any more sense than to do it."

And with these words she took her departure, ere the amazed Mr. Gaylord
had time to show her out. Half an hour elapsed before he opened his
letters.

When she arrived home in Hanover Street it was nine o'clock--an hour
well on in the day for Euphrasia. Unlocking the kitchen door, she gave a
glance at the stove to assure herself that it had not been misbehaving,
and went into the passage on her way up-stairs to take off her gown
before sitting down to reflect upon the astonishing thing she had heard.
Habit had so crystallized in Euphrasia that no news, however amazing,
could have shaken it. But in the passage she paused; an unwonted, or
rather untimely, sound reached her ears, a sound which came from the
front of the house--and at nine o'clock in the morning! Had Austen been
at home, Euphrasia would have thought nothing of it. In her remembrance
Hilary Vane, whether he returned from a journey or not, had never been
inside the house at that hour on a week-day; and, unlike the gentleman
in "La Vie de Boheme," Euphrasia did not have to be reminded of the
Sabbath.

Perhaps Austen had returned! Or perhaps it was a burglar! Euphrasia,
undaunted, ran through the darkened front hall to where the graceful
banister ended in a curve at the foot of the stairs, and there, on the
bottom step, sat a man with his head in his hands. Euphrasia shrieked.
He looked up, and she saw that it was Hilary Vane. She would have
shrieked, anyway.

"What in the world's the matter with you?" she cried.

"I--I stumbled coming down the stairs," he said.

"But what are you doing at home in the middle of the morning?" she
demanded.

He did not answer her. The subdued light which crept under the porch and
came in through the fan shaped window over the door fell on his face.

"Are you sick?" said Euphrasia. In all her life she had never seen him
look like that.

He shook his head, but did not attempt to rise. A Hilary Vane without
vigour!

"No," he said, "no. I just came up here from the train to--get somethin'
I'd left in my room."

"A likely story!" said Euphra