"Oh, no," he answered. "Hilda will go straight to bed, poor girl; and Ramsey will sit beside her and dab cologne on her forehead, and after a while he'll coax her to eat a cracker and drink some tea, and he'll have his dinner right there beside her. You don't know the turtle-doves. I don't hanker for my own society to-night, but I shall have to put up with it unless you take pity on me." "I can't, Frank," she answered. "I simply can't eat when my mind is so upset; I'm going straight home." "And make _your_ supper on crackers and tea, I suppose," he said disgustedly. "Well, in that case, I'll go for a tramp and try to get rid of the cobwebs in my brain, and the stuffy air of that courtroom. I always feel as if twenty centuries of alleged justice, injustice and malpractice looked down upon me when I get into court; that's one reason why I'm no good as a trial lawyer. Here, isn't this your street?" "Yes, no--I don't live where I did any more just now," she answered lucidly. He stopped and looked at her and smiled in spite of every everything. "I've sent in my copy, and you can walk up with me, if you want to." They walked on in silence; Frank was evidently thinking deeply, and Carroll was following some weary round of conjecture for the thousandth time when she stopped at her number. Frank looked at it and then at her, startled out of his usual debonair manner for once. "Why--it is----" "Yes," she answered. "I've been living here for some time, but that wasn't for publication, so I kept my other room, and had my mail go there as usual. Silvia desired it." "She hasn't left any stone unturned," he said musingly. "I wonder what was in that letter!" "Oh, she has told you, then?" Carroll asked. "About Mrs. Bell's letter to her? Oh, yes, she told me to-night, just before you joined us; I thought you knew about it. Anyhow, it seems to be gone beyond recall. Don't you intend to invite me in? Well, of all the inhospitable persons! I'll see you in the morning," and lifting his hat he went on up the Avenue.