Virginia and Mrs. Harris remained with Constance, but Rutley made it his business to keep his eyes on her and under pretense of searching the grounds, remained near by, in order to restrain her from approaching her brother. Her opportunity to undo all, which under a more prompt determination would have succeeded--was lost, simply because it had taken her some time to care for Constance, and also to arrive at a fixed conclusion, irrespective of the threats or cajoling of Rutley--and then John Thorpe disappeared. Two days she diligently searched for him, surmising that he was searching for Dorothy, but all her efforts to locate him were fruitless. She had just returned from a stubborn search of the hotels, when she heard the frenzied cry of, "A passage to my darling beyond." She recognized the voice and stole through the doorway, just in time to see Constance pass upstairs. As Virginia entered the room, she passed the table on which lay the divorce paper. The printed word attracted her attention, and at once arrested her onward course. She picked it up. "John Thorpe, from his wife, Constance." Horror and dismay swept across her face with lightning rapidity. Here, then, was the key to Rutley's horrible revenge. Now she knew that Constance was made to stand for Hazel. The document dropped from her nerveless hand, and with wildly beating heart she flew up the stairs after Constance. Noiselessly she opened the door. Before her--on her knees, with bowed head, the phial of laudanum between her clasped hands, was the woman who had received the terrible blow intended for Corway. Virginia's heart seemed to still its beating. Her blood seemed to be congealing to ice as she stood incapable of motion, and listened to the piteous appeal from that pure, broken heart. In a moment she understood it all--the intent--the arresting hand of fate--the startled submission of a meek and contrite spirit to the Divine will, and below--the divorce paper. Satisfied that Constance would not again attempt an act of self-destruction, and unequal, in her present frame of mind, to the task of ministering comfort to the woman whose grief must be partially laid to her door--for it must be remembered that Virginia had not in any manner contributed to the abduction of Dorothy, and was as much at a loss to account for the child's disappearance as her mother--she withdrew, her mission unfilled--her atonement inconceivably harder to accomplish. She seemed overcome with a suffocating sensation. She must have air. Out of the house she mechanically passed. Down the steps and around the grounds--under the silent falling vine and russet and golden-colored leaves she hurried, neither looking to the right nor to the left. Born on her father's Willamette Valley farm, yet this city home, of her childhood and of her womanhood, now so enchantingly beautiful in its Autumn glory, its fragrant coying whisper had no charm to impede her onward flight, no power to lift her bowed head.