" thought Henrietta, "for then
he told me beforehand that he might have to go. And he said so
positively, only a little while ago, that he did not intend to take
that trip south again. Perhaps he found he had to go after all.
Anyway, I guess it's what I'd better tell people."

Remembering his dinner engagement at Dr. Annister's, she made that
explanation over the telephone. Both to Dr. Annister and afterward to
Mildred she said that she did not know positively that he had gone to
West Virginia, but that he had told her, when he returned from his
former absence, that that was where he had been and that he might have
to go again, although he had not told her the exact place because, for
business reasons, he did not want it to be known.

Yes, Mildred assented, he had said the same thing to her and she
understood just how it was. But all the same, it was cruel of Felix,
and not at all like him, for he was always so sweetly considerate, to
go off in this sudden, secret way and leave them all in such suspense.

"When we're married," and a happy little laugh came rippling over the
telephone to Henrietta's ear, "it shan't be like this, for then he'll
have to take me with him on all such jaunts and I'll see to it that
you know where we are."

As the days went by, Henrietta, pondering with ever increasing anxiety
the mystery of this second disappearance, began to doubt the
explanation she gave to others. This time there came up no reason for
public interest and so even the knowledge that he was away was
confined to a few of his friends and to those who wished to see him
upon business. With all inquirers his secretary treated his absence as
an ordinary matter, saying merely that she thought he was somewhere in
the mountains of West Virginia, she did not know exactly where, nor
could she say positively when he would be back.

Nevertheless, looking back over what he said to her on his return
after his previous long absence, Henrietta recognized in it a touch of
insincerity. At the time she had accepted it as a matter of course,
but now, scrutinizing her memory of his words and his manner, in the
light of all that had happened since, she finally said to herself, "I
don't believe he was telling me the truth."

But if that southern business trip was a deliberate fabrication, what,
then, could be the reason for a prolonged absence, so injurious to all
his interests, whose real nature and purpose he had been at such pains
to conce