She was smiling at and enjoying the reflection of the new diamond ear-rings, Bill’s anniversary gift. She was enjoying them as only a woman can, in her mirror, when suddenly--she started. She became aware of a Something Unusual. It was a Presence that--was not Bill. She felt very cold all at once. She forgot whether she was massaging in the circular or horizontal. Then she turned hastily and just in time to witness a very remarkable phenomenon. Directly before her, clothed like a fashion plate, trim and debonnaire, hat in hand, and bowing and smiling, stood the man she had rejected and forgotten years ago. Imogene Silesia Sheets-Vanderhook stood face to face with the youthful yoga of Kankakee, the now powerful Gnani of Gingalee. The lady’s sense of the proprieties was shocked. Her blood ran hot with anger. Then she remembered for a certainty the fast bolted doors and the burglar alarm, and then her blood ran cold with fear. The silver box fell from her hand. She screamed in terror. She sprang forward, wildly calling for Bill, when--the gentlemanly intruder, still smiling, still bowing, withdrew as he came--directly through the panels of the bolted door. “Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!” But Bill had heard nothing. He had schooled himself to noises. Sunday morning sermons made him drowsy, and he often slept profoundly when Mrs. V. ragtimed on the piano. He had not heard that scream of terror. He had not sensed the thing which had fallen upon his hitherto happy home. It required a vigorous shaking to arouse him. But when once awake and listening to his wife’s rehearsal of the incident, Bill Vanderhook was stirred. He was no longer drowsy. He was never so wide awake. The Mayor of Kankakee paled and trembled. Memory was rife. He recalled Alonzo Leffingwell’s departure and the cause. He remembered his own part in that fatal introduction. He remembered the mystic’s claim upon Mrs. V. And worse than all, he could not forget the conditional curse pronounced upon himself. Bill Vanderhook realized his responsibility. A cold thrill ran spineward and radiated therefrom. It is said that drowning men pass in review a whole lifetime. So Bill Vanderhook in that one moment saw as in a vision his own domestic past. Though the years had but augmented his own devotion to Imogene Silesia, he had sometimes fancied that she, since coming into the Presidency of the Advanced-Thought-Extension Club, had at times appeared indifferent and distrait. He now recalled with an inward chill the foreboding that she now rarely came into the Drug Store except for a check, and that she no longer entered joyously into the yearly replenishing of the “Stock.” He remembered further, that on one or two occasions she had spoken as if she missed something in him. She had once or twice yawned when he was repeating some very flattering things said about himself in his several capacities and offices.