"Are there any more terrors to tell?" he asked at last recklessly. "Do you happen to be dead yourself, or has the 'coo' been killed? I beg your pardon--you won't understand the allusion----" he added hastily, "but I must be excused; there are limits! So, I see; you took me for Ted--for your husband, save the mark! Why isn't he here?--where he ought to be?" The sudden blame, following her own thought so closely, took Aura all unprepared. The dull grievance which had been hers all those long hours of vain waiting became suddenly acute. She dissolved into young self-pitying tears. "I don't know," she murmured, strangling her sobs, "and I don't in the least know what to do." For an instant Ned Blackborough felt inclined to arraign high heaven for thus robbing him of righteous wrath. But he was a gentleman, his heart was soft, so there was nothing for it save to accept the situation with the best grace he could. And the grace came, to his surprise, with such exceeding ease, despite his ill-usage, that he had to drive himself not towards patience, but to impatience, as he listened to Aura's tale of ignorance and loneliness. A man with money behind him, or rather money with a man behind it, can do all things save avoid vulgarity, ensure happiness, or escape death. By the evening, therefore, Ned Blackborough was able to give Aura a most sympathetic and affectionate telegram from her husband. "We ran him to earth in Vienna, where he had gone on business," said Ned, refraining, why he scarcely knew, from saying also that Ted had been found in a Biergarten, and that he had left strict orders that telegrams were not to be forwarded. "I got him through Hirsch, but he again was unfortunately in Paris; they have some big scoop on hand. But it is all right now, and he should be home to-morrow. As for the rest, you need not bother. It is all settled, and I will tell Martha what to expect. So I will say good-bye." She could not stifle down the quick appeal, "Must you go?" "Of course, I must go," he replied roughly, "I ought never to have come, and I am sorry I did, even though I have helped you. Good-bye." She watched him put on his greatcoat without another word, almost angry with herself for feeling so inexpressibly mean. She would have liked to tell him that she had been unable to wait, that even if she had waited her answer would have been the same; but she felt that all this must come afterwards when he had had time. And then suddenly he turned to her again. "I'll leave this here, I think," he said, putting a flat parcel he had taken out from his pocket on the piano, "you might while an hour or so by looking at them. It--it isn't all cussedness, Mrs. Cruttenden; I should like you to see them. I should like you to know _something_ of it, once! Good-bye; throw them into the fire when you have done with them. I shall not want them again."