The silence within those other rooms had become oppressive, and a panic began to come over him. He knocked, but there was no response. He went out into the hall once more, and trying each of the knobs shook them. The far door, to his surprise, opened under his hand. Not one valued possession of Mrs. Wallingford's was in evidence. Empty dresser drawers were open, and two suit cases were gone. A trunk in the corner stood wide, and its bulky articles of lesser worth were strewn upon the floor. He immediately telephoned from that room. Yes, Mrs. Wallingford had gone. No, they did not know to which depot. She had merely called a cab and had hurried away. He ordered up time tables and studied them feverishly. Almost at this very moment trains were leaving from two different depots, and these were more than three miles apart. There was no chance of finding quickly to which one she had gone. A horrible fear oppressed him. That she had joined Feldmeyer was almost inconceivable, but that she might have taken even this revenge for the slight that had made her furious was a thought in harmony with the principles by which, through his own moral warp, he judged humanity, and he was frantic. At Feldmeyer's office he found the door also locked and the rooms for rent! The next train for the East found Wallingford upon it. He spent days in attempting to get on the track of them, and he finally found out about Feldmeyer. He had gone to Europe. On the sailing list almost any name might conceal his wife, and to Europe went Wallingford, misled by his own worse self. It was characteristic of him that, having found Feldmeyer and being convinced that Mrs. Wallingford had never joined that gentleman, he should remind the doctor that he had been "chased" with his own money; and then he hurried home, more worried than ever, but his precious ten thousand dollars still intact and with some to spare. He needed that ten thousand for a specific purpose. Finally it occurred to him to enlist the services of "Blackie" Daw, and hunted that enterprising salesman of insecure securities. Blackie laughed at him and handed him a letter. Partly to punish her husband and partly to satisfy certain vague, mistaken longings she had cherished for a "quiet life," Mrs. Wallingford had immured herself in a little village, living most comfortably upon her diamonds; but now she was tired of it--and anxious for "Jim!" "It's no use," she confessed when he had hurried to her. "Your way is wrong, but you've spoiled me with luxury." "I'll spoil you with more of it," he assured her, petting her with an overgrown playfulness that seemed strange in one of his bigness of frame, and made of his varied character a most complex thing; "but if I don't hurry back on the job I'll get the hooks."