"My dear Mrs. Alexander, you can't expect a fellow to be always tied to his wife's apron-strings! He doesn't tell you everything. We like to have a free foot once in a while. Why, my wife's glad when I get off for a day or two--coaxes me to go away herself! And as for anything happening to Alexander--well, an able-bodied man can look out for himself every time; there's nothing in the world to be anxious about. He's meant to wire to you and forgotten to do it, that's all. I did that myself last year, when I was called away suddenly; but Myra didn't turn a hair. She knew I was all right. And if I were you, Mrs. Alexander,--this is just a tip,--I wouldn't go around telling _every_ one that he's gone off and you don't know where he is. It's the kind of thing folks get talking about in all kinds of ways; his affairs aren't in any too good shape, as he may have told you." "Isn't the business all right?" queried Lois, with a puzzled fear. "Oh, yes, of course--all right; but--I wouldn't go around wondering about his being away; he's got his own reasons. You haven't a telephone, have you? I'll send around word to have one put in to-day. I'll tell you what: I'll ask Bailey Girard to come around and see you on the quiet--he's got lots of wires he can pull. You won't need me any more." Leverich's meeting with Dosia had been characterized by a sort of brusque uninterest. He seemed to her indefinably lowered and coarsened in some way; his cheeks sagged; in his eyes was an unpleasant admission that he must bluster to avoid the detection of some weakness. And Dosia had lived in his house, eaten at his table, received benefits from him, caressed him prettily! He had been really kind to her. She ought not to let that fact be defaced. But everything connected with that time seemed now to lower her in retrospect, to fill her with a sort of horror. All his loud rebuttal of anxiety now could not cover an undercurrent of uneasiness that made the anxiety of the two women tenfold greater when he was gone. Mr. Girard had come twice the next morning. Dosia, as well as Lois, had seen him both times. He had greeted her with matter-of-fact courtesy, and appealed to her with earnest painstaking, whenever necessary, for details or confirmation, in their mutual office of helpers to Mrs. Alexander; but the retrieving warmth and intimacy of his manner the day he had avoided her in the street was lacking. There was certainly nothing in Dosia's quietly impersonal attitude to call it forth. Her face no longer swiftly mirrored each fleeting emotion at all times, for any one to see. Poor Dosia had learned in a bitter school her woman's lesson of concealment.