get
away was gone. Mary, with the care of her house on her hands, refused
Aunt Frances' invitation for a month by the sea, and Aunt Isabelle
declined to leave her.

"I like it better here, even with the heat," she told her niece, "than
running around Bar Harbor with Frances and Grace."

Barry wrote voluminous letters to Leila, and received in return her
dear childish scrawls. But the strain of her absence began to tell on
him. He began to feel the pull toward old pleasures and distractions.
Then one day Jerry Tuckerman arrived on the scene. The next night, he
and Barry and the other radiant musketeers motored over to Baltimore by
moonlight. Barry did not come home the next day, nor the next, nor the
next. Mary grew white and tense, and manufactured excuses which did
not deceive Aunt Isabelle. Neither of the tired pale women spoke to
each other of their vigils. Neither of them spoke of the anxiety which
consumed them.

Then one night, after a message had come from the office, asking for an
explanation of Barry's absence; after she had called up the Country
Club; after she had called up Jerry Tuckerman and had received an
evasive answer; after she had exhausted all other resources, Mary
climbed the steps to the Tower Rooms.

And there, sitting stiff and straight in a high-backed chair, with her
throat dry, her pulses throbbing, she laid the case before Roger Poole.

"There is no one else--I can speak to--about it. But Barry's been away
for nearly a week from the office and from home--and nobody knows where
he is. And it isn't the first time. It began before father died, and
it nearly broke his heart. You see, he had a brother--whose life was
ruined because of this. And Constance and I have done everything.
There will be months when he is all right. And then there'll be a
week--away. And after it, he is dreadfully depressed, and I'm afraid."
She was shivering, though the night was hot.

Roger dared not speak his sympathy. This was not the moment.

So he said, simply, "I'll find him, and when I find him," he went on,
"it may be best not to bring him back at once. I've had to deal with
such cases before. We will go into the country for a few days, and
come back when he is completely--himself."

"Oh, can you spare the time?"

"I haven't taken any vacation, and--so there are still thirty days to
my credit. And I need an outing."

He prepared at once to go, and when he had packed a little bag, he