where her
jewel case should be. It was gone.

"Then it's true," he said solemnly. "It's ended. What am I to do?"

He went to her wardrobe, looking at the vacant hooks, repeating:

"What am I to do?"

He went slowly back to the living-room to the desk by the lamp, where
the hateful thing stared up at him.

"What am I to do?"

All at once he struck the desk with his fist and a cry burst from him:

"Dishonored--I'm dishonored!"

His head flushed hot, his breath came in short, panting rage. He struck
the letter again and again, and then suddenly, frantically, began to
rush back and forth, repeating:

"Dishonored--dishonored!"

All at once a moment of clarity came to him with a chill of ice. He
stopped, went to the telephone and called up the Racquet Club, saying:

"Mr. De Gollyer to the 'phone."

Then he looked at his hand and found he was still clutching a forgotten
hair brush. With a cry at the grotesqueness of the thing, he flung it
from him, watching it go skipping over the polished floor. The voice of
De Gollyer called him.

"Is that you, Jim?" he said, steadying himself. "Come--come to me at
once--quick!"

He could have said no more. He dropped the receiver, overturning the
stand, and began again his caged pacing of the floor.

Ten minutes later De Gollyer nervously slipped into the room. He was a
quick, instinctive ferret of a man, one to whose eyes the hidden life of
the city held no mysteries; who understood equally the shadows that
glide on the street and the masks that pass in luxurious carriages. In
one glance he had caught the disorder in the room and the agitation in
his friend. He advanced a step, balanced his hat on the desk, perceived
the crumpled letter, and, clearing his throat, drew back, frowning and
alert, correctly prepared for any situation.

Lightbody, without seeming to perceive his arrival, continued his blind
traveling, pressing his fists from time to time against his throat to
choke back the excess of emotions which, in the last minutes, had dazed
his perceptions and left him inertly struggling against a shapeless
pain. All at once he stopped, flung out his arms and cried:

"She's gone!"

De Gollyer did not on the word seize the situation.

"Gone! Who's gone?" he said with a nervous, jerky fixing of his head,
while his glance immediately sought the vista through the door to assure
himself that no third person was present.

But Lightbody, unconscious of everything but hi