She hurried now as she walked across the field, feeling guiltily amid her disappointment that dinner would be waiting, and that she had left no word of her whereabouts with the maid, having in fact slipped out of the house unseen, to escape the clamouring notice of her only child, who was near his early bed-time. “Good-evening, Mrs. Gibbons. Coming back from town so late?” She looked up to see a friend approaching on the foot-path. “Oh, good-evening, Mr. Ferris! No, I’ve only come from the station; I’ve been looking for my husband.” He stopped half-way past her. “Why, he came out in the five-fifteen with me! He slipped off when it slowed up, and jumped down the embankment; he said he was in a hurry to get home. Too bad if you’ve missed him.” “Yes, it is,” said Mrs. Gibbons, hastily, breaking almost into a run. Arnold, she knew, hated to find her out of the house. As she went up the steps now, the door opened before she reached it, and an excited voice exclaimed: “Ah, ma’am, it’s yourself at last! It’s the neighbourhood we do be having searched for you!” “What do you mean, Katy?” Mrs. Gibbons, who had stood arrested on the threshold, pushed her way in. “Where is Mr. Gibbons?” “He’s gone.” “_Gone!_” “Yes, ma’am, gone back to the city. ’Twas like this: he bid me say that he had to be meeting friends—I disremember the name—on the other side, at the ferry, or he could have telephoned ’em, ma’am. ’Twas a grand dinner they had planned for to-night, unexpected like.” “Was the name”—Mrs. Gibbons paused that she might have courage to grasp her loss—“Was the name Atterbury?” “It was, ma’am.” Her beloved Atterburys! They were to sail for Rio at the end of the week. This was a dinner and a theatre party planned before and postponed. They _could_ not have it without her. “Mr. Gibbons must have known I’d be home in a minute!” “Sure, he waited for you, ma’am, till he had to run to the station below to catch the express; but he bid me tell you to be sure and take the seven o’clock train in, and he’d keep the party waiting at the ferry for you.” Mrs. Gibbons glanced at the clock. It was after seven now! But there was a seven-twenty-five train which reached town almost as soon, and Arnold would surely wait for that, even if the others had gone on to Martin’s, where they would dine. The Atterburys always went to Martin’s. She was accustomed to try and bend fate to her uses with an uncalculating ardour that focussed itself entirely on the impulse of the moment. To the suburbanite a little dinner in town is the height of pleasure, the one perfect feast! And with the Atterburys! She really could not miss it.