All the way to Glasgow he pondered on the singular circumstance of Theodora's failure to obey the telegram he had sent her. She had always been so prompt and glad to meet him, there must have been some mistake made in the message. He tried to remember its exact words, but could not, and as he neared his own city a certain fear assailed him. He began to wonder if his wife or child was sick--or if any accident had happened on their journey from Bradford to Crewe. But this solution he quickly dismissed as incredible. Theodora would have managed under any circumstances to send him word. She would not have kept him waiting and wondering. It was utterly unlike her. At length the anxious journey was over, but in hurrying from the train to his carriage, he noticed that the coachman spoke in an easy, nonchalant way, and that there was no sign about him of anything unusual or unhappy. When he reached Traquair House his mother and Isabel met him at the door, and Jepson unlocked his apartments, and began to turn on the light in the parlors. "We shall have dinner in twenty minutes, Robert," said Mrs. Campbell, and Jepson added: "Your rooms upstairs are prepared for you, sir." No one had named Theodora, and he had not done so either. Why? He could not tell "why"; for her name beat at his lips, and inquiry about her was the great demand of his nature. He looked into her rooms, and the sense of emptiness and desertion about them was like a blow. David's cot had been removed, he saw that at once, and felt angry about it. And the perfect order of things shocked something in his feelings never before recognized. He missed sorely those pretty bits of disorder, that seemed to him now almost a part of his wife and child--the bow of ribbon, the little shawl or scarf over a chair-back, the small book of daily texts, and the thin parchment copy of "_The Imitation_" on her table; David's puzzle on the window seat, or his tiny handkerchief on the floor beside it. Restless and unhappy he went down to the dining-room. His mother was in high spirits; Isabel still and indifferent. But it was Isabel who asked: "How much longer is Dora going to stay? The house is so lonely without her." "The house has been peaceful and restful without her, and the noisy child. I am sure it has been a great relief," corrected Mrs. Campbell. "I am anxious about Dora," said Robert with a touch of his most sullen temper, "she ought to have met me at Crewe, and did not do so. It was not like her." "It was very like her. She is the most unreliable of women. I dare say we shall see her by the next train--perhaps we----" "Mother, you are mistaken both about Dora and the train. Dora can always be depended on, and I waited for the next train, but she was not on it. After dinner I must telegraph to Bradford and elsewhere."