It was quite dark when she arrived home, for autumn was fast merging into winter. Ralph was out, but that was no uncommon occurrence. The evening was a very busy one, as the afternoon leisure had caused work to accumulate. When ten o'clock came, and the shopmen had both gone up to their bedroom, and Janie was preparing to retire also, Phebe began to think it was strange Ralph was so late. Going out on to the front pavement she gazed anxiously up and down the road. Very few people were about, for it was anything but a pleasant night for a stroll--true the moon was shining, but hurrying dark clouds were constantly passing in front of it, and a sighing wind seemed to prophesy the near approach of bad weather. At eleven o'clock she went out again: the clouds had grown larger, the intervals of moonlight were briefer. The wind sighed in a more mournful tone than before, and Phebe shivered, but more through apprehension than cold. At twelve o'clock she was on the watch again. The night was quite dark. "He must have missed the last train," she said to herself. "I will go to bed now." She must have slept for about two hours when she woke up with a sudden start. "Could there be any connection between that note and her husband's absence?"--that was the haunting question with which her mind was filled. "But how could there be?" she reasoned with herself. Sleep was wooed again, but all in vain. Rising and getting a light, she opened a drawer where Ralph kept some of his clothes. It was empty. Another drawer was opened; it also was empty. Then she looked in the cupboard, where his travelling-bag was kept; it was gone. She sat down to think: then, with startling suddenness, his words came to her mind, "I cannot fit in to this humdrum life much longer." For the next hour it seemed as if she was utterly alone. It was impossible even to think. She was fast becoming petrified, her very blood was freezing, when her baby woke up crying--and that cry saved her! She picked the baby up and strained it passionately to her, the hot tears raining on its little head. The child soon nestled to sleep again in its mother's arms; and then, still grasping her little one, she knelt down to pray. "O Jesus, take care of Ralph! O Jesus, take care of me and my little ones!" That was all she could say. After a moment or so of waiting, as though listening for the answer, she prayed again, and then came the sweet feeling of God's arms being round her, and she said, in a whisper to herself, "He will! He will!" She had been out in a dark wild storm, but had found the hiding-place. The next morning, while sending off some telegrams to places where she thought she could make inquiries without causing alarm, her sister called at the chemist's next door for some medicine for her father, and seeing Bessie just near the parlour-door, thought she would have it out with her. "Ah! I have found you out this time, young lady." "I don't know what you mean."