Of all the days that Tom had ever lived, that was the strangest--that day alone with Lena, who was ill and not ill; with Mrs. Lakeman invisible, he couldn't tell why; and with something at the back of--he couldn't tell what. He wrote out some telegrams before he went up-stairs. When he came down they had gone, and some instinct told him there was a reason for their disappearance; that the answer that came from Margaret later in the day was somewhat juggled, but how or why he didn't know. Lena wriggled and looked in his face and talked in low tones and called him "dear," but she had always done that. She did it to most people, and, though it made him uncomfortable, he couldn't bring himself to attach importance to it; he didn't even like being puzzled by it. Perhaps Mrs. Lakeman would be down to-morrow, he thought, and then things would explain themselves. Meanwhile he comforted himself by writing a long letter to Margaret, and with hoping that the morning would bring him one from her, but when it came there was not a sign. Then he felt uneasy, and determined that unless there was some good reason to the contrary he would go back to London that night. XXXIV Mrs. Lakeman appeared as naturally as possible at the Pitlochry breakfast-table the next morning. She looked haggard and ill with her two nights' travel; and now that the excitement of getting Tom away from London, and of the interview with Margaret was over, she asked herself once or twice whether the game had been worth the candle. After all, she thought Tom had only three or four thousand a year, and she didn't believe he would ever do much in politics. It was the dread of losing him that had roused her, the dramatic situation that had interested her, but now that she had created the situation she didn't know what to do with it; she was even a trifle bored. But everything bored her. She was a woman of humor and enterprise rather than of passion and sentiment, so that nothing kept a lasting hold upon her when once it had lost its novelty. In some sort of fashion she knew herself to be a sham, always experimenting with effects and make-believe feelings, but, try as she would, she could never drive realities home into her heart. In a sense Lena was like her, always wanting the thing beyond her reach, and experiencing a curious sense of satiety as soon as she possessed it. Even the presence of Tom after the long interviews of yesterday had lost some of its fascination. "I don't think I want him," she told her mother, "but I don't want to let him go."