It was the sound of some one moving downstairs that decided me to risk my appearance and enter. I turned the handle and put my head round the door. To my amazement the room was empty. I was both relieved and disappointed. For though the sight of Jenny there would have left me merely gaping and grinning inanely, yet I knew now I should have to prepare myself for the ordeal all over again. I went in and sat down on a chair, and looked about the room. It was strangely empty. Usually there were clothes lying here and there, for Jenny wasn't the tidiest of mortals. And besides there used to be all sorts of odds and ends and gimcracks that I couldn't name dotted about the walls and shelves, and their absence now left a gap in the place. I went to the bed and pulled aside the curtain. The clothes and mattress were rolled up into a bundle. Evidently no one was expected to sleep there that night. I looked blankly around me, feeling bitterly dejected, and knowing, in spite of silly arguments that kept rising to the contrary, that Jenny wasn't there at all. She had gone away. I began to notice other signs of abandonment. The dust lay thickly everywhere. There were odds and ends of paper lying untidily about the floor as though drawers and cupboards had been turned out. As indeed they had been; for when I examined them they were empty. I sat down on the bed, disheartened and disconsolate. I didn't realize till this moment how keenly I had been looking forward to seeing Jenny. And the stupid trembling left me, and I felt limp with dejection. Again I was alone in the world. And with the sense of loneliness came back in a flood of anguish the memory of my father's death. I was too utterly broken to weep even. I just sat there looking dully before me, saying to myself, "Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!..." Then I felt a surge of anger against her. Why had she gone away? Gone away without even leaving me a message! Perhaps she had left a message! With quickened feelings I sprang up and gazed about the room, then started turning out all the drawers. Before I had merely glanced idly at them. But though I hunted high and low there was no trace of any message. I even examined the dusty shelves, wondering whether she had thought to write on them with her finger, till it occurred to me that the dust had gathered after she had left. Then I thought there might be a note for me downstairs, or even in my own bedroom. I turned to the door, but again I heard a noise; and I hesitated. There was somebody on the landing. Instinct told me it was my enemy, for who else should be prowling round the place when the inmates had gone?