rom her heart
parted her death-white lips, but remained unuttered. Wider and wider
grew her eyes as she gazed with horror across the room. The power of
action seemed to be denied to her. Her knees shook; a sort of paralysis
seemed to stifle every sense of movement. She swayed and nearly fell,
but her hand met the corner of the mantelpiece and she held herself
erect. Gradually, second by second, the arrested life commenced to flow
once more through her veins. She had but one impulse--to fly. She
thought nothing of the motive of her coming, only to place the door
between her and this! Unsteadily, but without accident, she passed
through the door, and though her hand shook like a leaf, she managed to
close it noiselessly again. Somehow, she never quite knew how, she found
herself outside in the corridor, and a moment later safe in her own room
with the door bolted. Then she threw herself upon the bed, and it seemed
to her afterwards that she must have fainted!

* * * * *

Only a few hours later Guy, who had slept little that night, and had
waked with a desperate resolve, stepped out of the lift and knocked at
Virginia's door. There was no answer. The waiter came out from the
service-room and approached him.

"The young lady has left, sir," he announced.

"Left?" Guy repeated aimlessly. "When? How long ago?"

"Barely half an hour, sir," the man answered.

"She paid up her bill as I know, and left the key behind. The rooms
belong to her for another fortnight, but she didn't seem as though she
were coming back."

"Did she leave any address for letters?" Guy asked.

"If you inquire at the office, sir, they will tell you," the man
answered.

Guy went down to the office.

"Can you tell me," he asked, "if Miss Longworth has left any address?"

The man shook his head.

"She left an hour ago, sir," he said. "She said there would be no
letters, and if we liked we could let her rooms, as she was certain not
to come back."

"You cannot help me to find her, then?" Guy asked. "I am the Duke of
Mowbray, and I should be exceedingly obliged to any one who could help
me to discover this young lady."

They were all sent for at once, porter, commissionaire, hall-boy. The
information he was able to obtain, however, was scanty indeed. Virginia
had simply told the cabman, who had taken her and her luggage away, to
drive along the Strand toward Charing Cross.

Guy drove back to Grosvenor Square,