"Poor old Anne is not as young as she was," he exclaimed lightly. "I dare say you found her a little tiresome. Well, I suppose you came home when you were tired of it?" "Yes," said Evelyn, without turning round, "I came home when I was tired of it." He could not see the deep blush upon her cheeks, nor would he have understood it had he done so. Indeed, she was truthful so far as the letter of the truth went. A visit to Richmond had been the excuse which carried her from Melbourne Hall. Three dreary days she had spent in a prim house overlooking the Thames. The home of the skittish Aunt Anne, whose sixty years did not forbid her still to look out, like Sister Mary, for an heroic "Him" upon her horizon. From Richmond, Evelyn had gone to the Carlton Theatre; and now, for an instant, even here in her own home, the Etta Romney could return to delight in her adventure. What a sensation had attended her disappearance from London? Safely guarded in her jewel-case upstairs were cuttings from the newspapers of the days succeeding that mad flight. Be sure that the great Charles Izard made the most of his misfortune. He had believed that Etta Romney left him at the bidding of caprice and at the voice of caprice would return to him again. His shrewd mind instantly perceived that the truth would best serve him on this occasion; and though he was not on very good terms with truth, the quarrel was soon patched up. To all the reporters he told the full story of this captivating romance. "The girl came to me from nowhere," he said frankly, "and where she has gone God knows. I gave her a hearing because she wrote me the cleverest letter I have read for many a long day. Her home was in Derbyshire, and this was a Derbyshire play. I saw her act one scene in my theatre and said that she was 'bully.' She had the best send off I can remember. Then comes the night when I am strung up on my own hook. She expresses her trunks and quits. About that I know as much as you do. Her traps were left at St. Pancras station, and a letter says that she has given up the theatre. Well, I don't believe it. A girl who can act like that will never give up the theatre. In one month or six she'll be starring in my plays. She cannot help herself; she's got to do it." Nothing whets the public's appetite so surely as curiosity; and all London had grown curious about Etta Romney. Discerning men, who had but half-praised her when she first appeared, hastened to declare that her loss was irreparable. Less responsible journals gave coherent accounts of the whole business, written in the back office by gentlemen who knew nothing whatever about it. The affair, at first but a nine days' wonder, became a standing headline when the editor of a popular newspaper boldly offered a hundred guineas for the discovery of Etta Romney's whereabouts.