"W-well," he said slowly, "I hadn't thought of that. This has been my stepmother's home for almost twenty years, and, while it belongs to me legally, I wouldn't think for a moment of pitching her out." He paused for a moment, and his tone had a touch of wistfulness in it. "It's always been my home, too, Helen. To me there is no place quite like Greenacres; I--I wish you'd really try to be happy here." Helen did not respond with that sympathetic understanding he had hoped for, and Kirklan, of course, could not know that the receipt of the letter only a few minutes before had filled her with a desperate anxiety to flee from the thing that threatened her. "You--you won't--take me away?" she persisted. "Helen, you don't know how hard it is for me to deny you any wish. Heaven knows I want to make you happy, but can't you understand that we've got to be practical? My studio is here; my library is here; and it's here that I've always done my best work. At least wait until the book is finished, and then, if you still do not like Greenacres, we--we will see what we can do." There was, despite his conciliatory tone, a note of firmness, and Helen, with a shrug of her pretty shoulders, dismissed the subject temporarily. "You won't go into town with me?" asked Gilmore. "It will be a change, and I think you'll find it a pleasant trip in the car." Helen thought swiftly and came to a decision. She did want to go to New York, but certainly not with her husband; she must forestall any effort of the unsigned sender of that letter to see her at Greenacres. The sooner the better. "Why don't you use the train, Kirklan, and let me have the car?" she suggested. "I'd like to take the ferry across the river to Nyack and drive out toward Tuxedo." Gilmore agreed promptly. "Suppose you take Joan along," he suggested. "You can't help liking her after the first strangeness wears off; really you've no idea what a perfect little brick she is." Helen shook her head. "No," she refused, "I'd rather be alone to-day." And that much was true. Gilmore looked at his watch and moved toward his wife for a parting embrace; it was the first time he had left her, even for a trip to New York, and, madly in love with Helen as he was, the prospect was depressing. "You'll be careful about driving," he warned. "Stay on the country roads and out of the traffic; you're still a bit new at it, you know. I've just time to get the ten-thirty train." There was no thought in Helen's mind, despite her decision to make a secret trip into the city, of risking the heavy and perilous traffic of New York. Her plan was to run the car across country to White Plains, and there board the Boston & Westchester interurban electric. In this way, she reasoned, she would avoid the Grand Central Station and the possibility of getting back on the same train with her husband. How the most cunning of plans go astray!