evidently an unusual commotion among the servants;
and as he entered, Connie's nurse came to meet him
with a white and startled face.

"Have you seen Mrs. Adams?" she asked hastily.

"She separated from me in a shop and though I
searched for her for hours, I could not find her."

For a breathless pause he stared at her in be-
wildered horror; then his eyes fell upon a note lying
conspicuously on the hall table, and he took it up
and tore it open before he answered. The words
on the paper were few, and after reading them, he
folded the sheet again and replaced it in the envelope.
For an instant longer he still hesitated, swallowing
down the sensation of dryness in his throat.

"She will not come back to-night," he said quietly
at last; "she has gone away for a few days."

Then turning from the vacant curiosity in the
assembled faces, he went into his study and shut
himself alone in the room in which the memory
of his dead child still lived.

-253-