"Wait. I'll come down and let you in," Nannie said; he heard a muffled colloquy back in the room, and then the window closed sharply. Far off, a church clock struck one. Blair stood with a hand on the doorknob; through the leaded side-windows he saw a light wavering down through the house; a moment later Nannie, lamp in hand, shivering in her thin dressing-gown, opened the door. "Has she been here this evening?" "Blair! You scare me to death! No; she hasn't been here. What is the matter? Your coat is all wet! Is it raining?" "She isn't at the hotel, and I don't know where she is." "Why, she's at Mr. Ferguson's, of course!" "No, she isn't. I've been there." "She may be at home by this time," Nannie faltered, and Blair, assenting, was just turning to rush away, when another voice said, with calm peremptoriness: "What is the matter?" Blair turned to see Mrs. Richie. She had come quietly down-stairs, and was standing beside Nannie. Even in his scared preoccupation, the sight of David's mother shook him. "I--I thought," he stammered, "that you had gone home, Mrs. Richie." "She had a little cold, and I would not let her go until to-morrow morning," Nannie said; "you always take more cold on those horrid sleeping-cars." Nannie had no consciousness of the situation; she was far too alarmed to be embarrassed. Blair cringed; he was scarlet to his temples; yet under his shame, he had the feeling that he had when, a little boy, he clung to David's pretty mother for protection. "Oh, Mrs. Richie," he said, "I am so worried about Elizabeth!" "What about her?" "She said something this afternoon that frightened me." "What?" But he would not tell her. "It was nothing. Only she was very angry; and--she will do anything when she is angry." Mrs. Richie gave him a look, but he was too absorbed to feel its significance. "It was something about--well, a sort of silly threat. I didn't take it in at the time; but afterward I thought perhaps she meant something. Really, it was nothing at all. But--" his voice died in his throat and his eyes were terrified. There was such pain in his face that before she knew it David's mother was sorry for him; she even put her hand on his shoulder. "It was just a mood," she comforted him. And Blair, taking the white, maternal hand in both of his, looked at her speechlessly; his chin trembled. Instantly, without words of shame on one side or of forgiveness on the other, they were back again, these two, in the old friendship of youth and middle age. "It was a freak," said Mrs. Richie, soothingly. "She is probably at the hotel by this time. Don't be troubled, Blair. Go and see. If she isn't at the hotel let me know at once."