"Venetia!" Matthias cried. "What about Venetia?" Tankerville avoiding his eye, it devolved upon Helena to respond to Matthias's frantic and imperative look. "Venetia," she said reluctantly--"Venetia eloped with Marbridge day before yesterday--Tuesday. She came in town in the morning to do some shopping, met him and was married to him at the City Hall. They sailed on the Mauretania yesterday. The papers didn't get hold of it--_we_ knew nothing!--till this afternoon. I was afraid she might have written you and you--in despair--" Her voice broke. After a little, Matthias turned to a heap of unopened correspondence on a side table and ran rapidly through it, examining only the addresses. "No," he said presently, in a level tone: "no--she didn't trouble to write me." XI For several days the girl had haunted the stairs, the hall, and door-step, alert to waylay Matthias, before suddenly she became aware that it was long since she had either caught a glimpse of him or heard the syncopated murmuring of the typewriter behind the closed door to his back-parlour. It required the lapse of another day or two before she found courage to question (with laboured indifference) the dilapidated chambermaid who sedulously neglected her room for lack of a tip. From this far from garrulous source she learned that Matthias had packed up and gone out of town very suddenly, without mentioning where he might be addressed during his absence. Alone at the window of her tiny cell, Joan stared down at the uninspiring vista of back-yards and disconsolately recapitulated her sorry fortunes. She was now close upon the end of the fortnight's residence in the hall bedroom; before long she would have to surrender another four dollars--a week's rent in advance. Of the twenty-two dollars she had received from Butch, eight remained in her purse. By dint of adhering to a diet largely vegetarian, she had managed without serious discomfort to keep within an expenditure of four dollars per week for food. And twice Maizie Dean had saved her the cost of an evening meal by inviting her to dine out--at the expense of friends in "the profession." But a continuance of such favours was not to be counted upon; and the problem of living a fourth week away from home was one serious and importunate--always assuming she should fail to secure work before her money ran out. She had no resources in any degree dependable: Butch, even if willing, would probably not be able to extend her another loan; she possessed nothing worth pawning; and Maizie Dean had taken prompt occasion to make it clear that, while she was willing to do anything inexpensive for a budding sister _artiste_, her tolerance would stop short of financial aid.