Sponley talked to Mr. Meredith somewhat longer than was strictly necessary; and when there was nothing more to say, he still delayed a little in hanging up the receiver. He could not decide just what he had best say to Harriet when he turned away from the telephone. To some ears his messages would have sounded innocent enough, but Harriet was different; still he could not be sure that she had listened at all. As he rang the bell for disconnection, he fancied he heard a movement in the room, and when he turned to speak to her, Harriet was gone. He called her name, but there was no answer, and while he listened for it, he thought he heard her step on the stairs. Considerably surprised, though somewhat relieved at having his awkward explanation deferred for a moment, he went out into the hall and again called to her, but still there was nothing to show him that she had heard, though there had been hardly time for her to get quite out of earshot. He walked part way up the stairs, hesitated, and finally turned back; then, after ringing for his carriage, he went out. He had enough on his mind during the next few hours without thinking of Harriet or trying to explain her apparently unaccountable behavior. Harriet would not have listened to the messages he had sent over the telephone if the first word he said as she entered the room had not been the name of Curtin. Harriet hated Curtin exactly as she hated a rat, and equally strongly she loathed the thought of Melville Sponley’s association with him. In all the months since it had begun she had never been able to conquer that feeling or even to conceal it from her husband. So she listened to the enigmatical instructions, and was so fully occupied in wondering what they might mean that she did not catch the import of Sponley’s message to Mr. Meredith until just as he was at the end of it. Then it suddenly came over her that her husband, who always knew so well the effect his words would have, must be aware that what he was saying to poor, timorous Mr. Meredith was anything but reassuring. The full meaning of the move was not then apparent to her; but with the first dim perception of it came the feeling that she must be alone, and without trying to resist it or to account for it, she had literally fled upstairs. Before she reached her room she regretted having yielded to the impulse, and after standing a moment irresolute, she turned to go back. When he called to her the second time, she tried to answer, but could not command her voice, so taking from a drawer a fresh handkerchief which should serve as the excuse for her flight, she walked back to the head of the stairs; just as she reached it, she heard her husband go out. With a feeling of relief at being left alone, she threw herself upon her bed, and for a long time she lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying not to think.