The dancers who were not staying for the second dinner, about to be announced at four o'clock, had begun to leave. Friends were helping the ladies to their cars and carriages, and other friends were labouring hopefully with those who were not yet convinced of the incapacity to take care of themselves. Everywhere the floors were stained with the crushed forms of butterflies. The wonderful flashing creatures had darted through the rooms at first with swift whirling circling wings. But in the hot fetid air one by one they had fallen to the floor crushed into shapeless masses. Hundreds of them had clung to the leaves of the lilacs, roses and ferns until they dropped exhausted. Some of them still hung in long graceful swaying streamers of dazzling colour from the ceilings. The doctor pointed to them. "Look, dear, their poor little hearts are counting the seconds that yet separate them from the mangled bodies of their mates on the floor. So the hearts of millions of people have been crushed out for the sport of this evening. It's a funny world, isn't it?" Harriet looked up quickly into his face with puzzled inquiry. "Why, Papa, I never heard you talk so strangely. What's the matter?" The father laughed in the best of spirits. "Only the fancy of a moment, child. I never felt better. Did you have a good time?" The girl's face grew serious as she drew on her wrap and glanced back toward the great doorway of the ball room. "Yes, when I could forget the pain in my heart." She paused and seized his arm with sudden energy. "You succeeded? It's all right? I'm going abroad at once to study?" The doctor laughed aloud in a burst of fierce joy. "Certainly, my dear! Didn't I tell you it would be so?" The tears sprang into the gentle eyes as she answered gratefully. "You can't know how happy you've made me." Bivens, who had heard the doctor's laughter, passed and said with exaggerated courtesy: "I trust you have enjoyed the evening, Woodman?" The doctor laughed again in his face. "More than I can possibly tell you!" Bivens followed to the door and watched him slowly walk down the steps. CHAPTER XX THE PARTING OF THE WAYS The two weeks which followed the Bivens ball, were the happiest Harriet Woodman had known since Nan's shadow had fallen across her life. Every moment was crowded with the work of preparing for her trip, except the hours she could not refuse Stuart, who had suddenly waked to the fact that something beautiful was going out of his life. Every day he asked her to play and sing for him or go for one of their rambles over the hills. They talked but little. He simply loved to be alone with her. Harriet watched him with keen joy, and deep in her heart a secret hope began to slowly grow. The day she sailed he refused to go with her to the pier. "Why Jim, you must come with me!" she protested. "No, I can't, little pal. Sit down at your piano now and sing my favourite song and I'll say goodbye here." "But why?" she pleaded.