“She won't go,” Lady Bazelhurst was saying to herself, as she sat, narrow-eyed and hateful, in her window looking out into the night. “Life is too easy here.” The light from the porch lanterns cast a feeble glow out beyond the porte-cochère and down the drive. As she stared across the circle, the figure of a woman suddenly cut a diametric line through it, and lost itself in the wall of blackness that formed the circumference. Lady Evelyn started and stared unbelievingly into the darkness, striving to penetrate it with her gaze. “It was she--Penelope,” she cried, coming to her feet. “She's really gone--she meant it.” For many minutes she peered out into the night, expecting to see the shadow returning. A touch of anxious hope possessing her, she left the window and hurried down the corridor to Penelope's room. What she found there was most convincing. It was not a trick of the lanterns. The shadow had been real. It must be confessed that the peevish heart of Lady Bazelhurst beat rather rapidly as she hastened back to the window to peer anxiously out into the sombre park with its hooting owls and chattering night-bugs. The mournful yelp of a distant dog floated across the black valley. The watcher shuddered as she recalled stories of panthers that had infested the great hills. A small feeling of shame and regret began to develop with annoying insistence. An hour dragged itself by before she arose petulantly, half terrified, half annoyed in spite of herself. Her husband still was sitting in the big chair, his face in his hands. His small, dejected figure appealed to her pity for the first time in the two years of their association. She realized what her temper had compelled her to say to him and to his sister; she saw the insults that at least one of them had come to resent. “I hope that foolish girl will come back,” she found herself saying, with a troubled look from the window. “Where can the poor thing go? What will become of her? What will everyone say when this becomes known?” she cried, with fresh selfishness. “I--I should not have let her go like this.” Even as she reproached herself, a light broke in upon her understanding; a thought whirled into her brain and a moment later she knew where she could go! “How simple I am. Shaw will welcome her gladly. She's with him by this time--his doors have opened to her. The little wretch! And I've been trying so hard to pity her!” She laughed again so shrilly that his lordship stirred and then looked up at her stupefied, uncertain. “Hullo,” he grunted. “What time is it?” “Oh, you're awake, are you?” scornfully. “Certainly. Have I been dozing? What's there to laugh at, my dear?” he mumbled, arising very unsteadily. “Where's Pen?” “She's gone. She's left the house,” she said, recurring dread and anxiety in her voice. A glance at the darkness outside brought back the growing shudders. “What--what d' ye mean?” demanded he, bracing up with a splendid effort.