ends," he suggested. "She may be at Lady
Winsleigh's or Mrs. Lorimer's."

"No, no!" interrupted Morris. "Britta, who stayed up all night for her,
has since been to every house that my lady visits and no one has seen or
heard of her!"

"Where is Britta?" demanded Philip suddenly.

"She has gone again to Lady Winsleigh's," answered Morris, "she says it
is there that mischief has been done,--I don't know what she means!"

Philip shook off his secretary's sympathetic touch, and strode through
the rooms to Thelma's boudoir. He put aside the velvet curtains of the
portiere with a noiseless hand--somehow he felt as if, in spite of all
he had just heard, she _must_ be there as usual to welcome him with that
serene sweet smile which was the sunshine of his life. The empty
desolate air of the room smote him with a sense of bitter pain,--only
the plaintive warble of her pet thrush, who was singing to himself most
mournfully in his gilded cage, broke the heavy silence. He looked about
him vacantly. All sorts of dark forebodings crowded on his mind,--she
must have met with some accident, he thought with a shudder,--for that
she would depart from him in this sudden way of her own accord for no
reason whatsoever seemed to him incredible--impossible.

"What have I done that she should leave me?" he asked half aloud and
wonderingly. Everything that had seemed to him of worth a few hours ago
became valueless in this moment of time. What cared he now for the
business of Parliament--for distinction or honors among men?
Nothing--less than nothing! Without her, the world was empty--its
ambitions, its pride, its good, its evil, seemed but the dreariest and
most foolish trifles!

"Not even a message?" he thought. "No hint of where she meant to go--no
word of explanation for me? Surely I must be dreaming--my Thelma would
never have deserted me!"

A sort of sob rose in his throat, and he pressed his hand strongly over
his eyes to keep down the womanish drops that threatened to overflow
them. After a minute or two, he went to her desk and opened it, thinking
that there perhaps she might have left a note of farewell. There was
nothing--nothing save a little heap of money and jewels. These Thelma
had herself placed, before her sorrowful, silent departure, in the
corner where he now found them.

More puzzled than ever, he glanced searchingly round the room--and his
eyes were at once attracted by the sparkle of the diamond cross that lay
up