When the little Dresden clock on the mantelpiece struck one, it came as a shock. Lexy sprang to her feet and looked about the room, filled with unreasoning fear. One o’clock, and Caroline hadn’t come back! Suppose—suppose she never came back? Lexy dismissed that idea with healthy scorn. Things like that didn’t happen; and yet—what was it that gave to the pink and white lamplit room such an air of being deserted? “Why, the photographs are gone!” she cried. She noticed now for the first time that the photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Enderby in silver frames, which had always stood on the writing desk, were not standing there now. She turned to the bureau. Caroline’s silver toilet set was not there. She made a rapid survey of the room, and she made sure of her suspicions. Caroline had gone deliberately, taking with her all the things she would need on a short trip. “I’ve got to tell Mrs. Enderby now,” she thought. “It’s only fair.” She went out into the corridor, closing the door behind her, and turned toward Mrs. Enderby’s room. She was very, very reluctant, for she dreaded to break the peace of the quiet house by this dramatic announcement. She hated anything in the nature of the sensational. Level-headed, cool, practical, her instinct was to make light of all this, to insist that nothing was really wrong. Caroline had gone, and that was that. “There’s going to be such a fuss!” she thought. “If there’s anything I loathe, it’s a fuss.” And all the time, under her cool and sensible exterior, she was frightened. She felt that after all she was very young, and very inexperienced, in a world where things—anything—things beyond her knowledge—might happen. She knocked upon the door lightly—so lightly that no one heard her; and she had to knock again. This time Mrs. Enderby opened the door. “Well?” she asked, not very amiably. “I thought I ought to tell you—” Lexy began; and still she hesitated, moved by the unaccountable feeling that this might be treachery to Caroline. “Tell me what?” asked Mrs. Enderby. “Come, if you please, Miss Moran! Tell me at once!” “Caroline’s gone.” The words were spoken. Lexy waited in great alarm, wondering if Mrs. Enderby would faint or scream. The lady did neither. She came out into the corridor, shutting the door of her room behind her, and her first word and her only word was: “Hush!” Then she glanced about her at the closed doors, and, taking Lexy’s arm in a firm grip, hurried her to Caroline’s room. Not until they were shut in there did she speak again. “Now tell me!” she said. “Speak very low. You said—Caroline has gone?” “Yes,” said Lexy. “I came in here after you’d gone to bed, and—you can see for yourself—the bed hasn’t been slept in. She’s taken her things—her brush and comb and—” “And she told you—what?” “Me? Why, nothing!” answered Lexy, in surprise. “I didn’t see her. I haven’t seen her since dinner.” “But you know,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You know where she has gone.”