From which it will be seen that the idea of "home" crept already into her dizzy head and attracted her strangely. There is always an aftermath of jest, however bold that jest may be. Etta realized this dimly, though all the impressions of the theatre, its glamour and its triumphs, were too new to her to permit of any serious rival. She feared discovery simply for her father's sake. To him the theatre stood for a very pit of all that was most evil. He had, from the days of her childhood, dreaded a day which would awaken a mother's instincts in Etta and tell him that she had inherited her mother's genius as an actress. For such a reason, above others, he made a recluse of her. For such a reason, loving her passionately, he sent her to the convent school and guarded her almost as a prisoner of his house. Etta knew that he disliked the theatre greatly; but she never had his reasons, and was unaware of her dead mother's story. Had she known it, this mad escapade would never have taken place. She left the house in Bedford Square at half-past seven furtively and not a little afraid. She had already determined to keep her own secret, and to that intention she adhered resolutely. Crossing the Square with quick steps, she stood an instant at the corner to make sure that no one followed her. When her suspicions upon this point were at rest, she called the first hansom cab she could see and told the man to drive her to St. Pancras Station. "And please to stop at a telegraph office on the way," she said. The journey had been fully determined upon by this time, and she no longer found herself irresolute. It cost her much to send Charles Izard her farewell message; but she did it courageously, as one who knew that it must be done. How or why Count Odin had crossed her path she could not say; but her clever little head grappled instantly with that turn of destiny and determined to defeat it. None could harm her in her home in Derbyshire, she said ... and to Derbyshire she determined to go. When she entered the post-office and had dispatched her telegrams, she felt as one from whose weak shoulders a great weight had been lifted. What a dream it had all been! The hopes, the fears, the success of it. Her heart was a little heavy when she wrote down the words: "I am leaving London and shall not return--pray, forgive me and forget--Etta Romney." There would be a sensation at the theatre to-night, but what of it if the walls of her home were about her and the gates of it had closed upon her secret. She knew too little of Count Odin's story that her fears of him should be enduring.