“Where's Billy?” he had asked abruptly. “Marie says she hasn't seen her for two weeks. Marie's afraid she's sick. She says Billy didn't look well a bit, when she did see her.” Calderwell had capped the climax. He had said: “Great Scott, Henshaw, where have you been keeping yourself? And where's your wife? Not one of us has caught more than a glimpse of her for weeks. She hasn't sung with us, nor played for us, nor let us take her anywhere for a month of Sundays. Even Miss Greggory says _she_ hasn't seen much of her, and that Billy always says she's too busy to go anywhere. But Miss Greggory says she looks pale and thin, and that _she_ thinks she's worrying too much over running the house. I hope she isn't sick!” “Why, no, Billy isn't sick. Billy's all right,” Bertram had answered. He had spoken lightly, nonchalantly, with an elaborate air of carelessness; but after he had left Calderwell, he had turned his steps abruptly and a little hastily toward home. And he had not found Billy--at least, not at once. He had gone first down into the kitchen and dining-room. He remembered then, uneasily, that he had always looked for Billy in the kitchen and dining-room, of late. To-day, however, she was not there. On the kitchen table Bertram did see a book wide open, and, mechanically, he picked it up. It was a much-thumbed cookbook, and it was open where two once-blank pages bore his wife's handwriting. On the first page, under the printed heading “Things to Remember,” he read these sentences: “That rice swells till every dish in the house is full, and that spinach shrinks till you can't find it. “That beets boil dry if you look out the window. “That biscuits which look as if they'd been mixed up with a rusty stove poker haven't really been so, but have only got too much undissolved soda in them.” There were other sentences, but Bertram's eyes chanced to fall on the opposite page where the “Things to Remember” had been changed to “Things to Forget”; and here Billy had written just four words: “Burns,” “cuts,” and “yesterday's failures.” Bertram dropped the book then with a spasmodic clearing of his throat, and hurriedly resumed his search. When he did find his wife, at last, he gave a cry of dismay--she was on her own bed, huddled in a little heap, and shaking with sobs. “Billy! Why, Billy!” he gasped, striding to the bedside. Billy sat up at once, and hastily wiped her eyes. “Oh, is it you, B-Bertram? I didn't hear you come in. You--you s-said you weren't coming till six o'clock!” she choked. “Billy, what is the meaning of this?” “N-nothing. I--I guess I'm just tired.” “What have you been doing?” Bertram spoke sternly, almost sharply. He was wondering why he had not noticed before the little hollows in his wife's cheeks. “Billy, what have you been doing?” “Why, n-nothing extra, only some sweeping, and cleaning out the refrigerator.” “Sweeping! Cleaning! _You!_ I thought Mrs. Durgin did that.”