“I don’t understand it,” with puzzled, doubtful eyes. “Lorry is not like that. She is quite strong really. She has only once before gone under like this, and then it was a mental strain. I wonder if it is anything the same again? Did you see much of her?” “I saw her four or five times.” “And she didn’t tell you anything?” “Anything about what?” “Well—about her husband, for instance. He isn’t worrying her again, is he?” “She did not speak of him at all.” “Then what is it?… I wish she had not gone so far away. I wish I could get to her. Did she say when she might be coming back?” “Not at present. She likes being there. She does not want to come back.” “That’s what I can’t understand. Something odd seems to have changed her. Have you thought so.” “I don’t think it odd in Lorraine to fancy a long spell of country life. She was always loved the country.” “Not alone,” with decision, “except for a good reason. I feel there is a reason now, and I do not know it.” Suddenly she gave him another direct look. “You are changed too. You are years older. Is it your advancing success, or what? … I don’t say it isn’t becoming,” with a dash of her old banter—“but it seems sudden.” He raised his eyes slowly and looked into her face with an expression that in some way hurt her. It was the look of a devoted dog, craving forgiveness. She pushed her cup away impatiently, half laughing and half serious. “Don’t look at me like that, Baby,” striving blindly to rally him—“you make me feel as if I had smacked you.” He laughed to reassure her, and changed the subject to Norway, trying to keep her mind from further questioning concerning himself and Lorraine. After tea she left him to go down to Shoreditch with Dick, first meeting him and the forlorn “G” at the Cheshire Cheese for their usual high tea. It had become quite an institution now that “G” should join them, and, as Hal had predicted, she and Dick were firm friends. It was the brightest spot of the music-teacher’s life since Basil Hayward died, and neither of them would have disappointed her for the world if they could help it. Tonight Quin was there also, so Hal was able to get a few words privately with Dick. “What in the world is the matter with Alymer?” she asked. “I had tea with him this afternoon. He seems awfully down on his luck.” “I don’t know what it is,” Dick answered. “He is certainly not very gay—yet that last case he won before the Law Courts closed should have put him in fine feather for the whole vacation. Did you ask him if anything was wrong?” “Yes; but he would only prevaricate. He has been in France, you know, studying the language, and he saw Lorraine, but he says very little about her. I wish I had time to go over and see her. Why, in the name of goodness, is she not acting this winter?” But Dick could not help her to any solution, and an accumulation of work kept her too busy to brood on the puzzle. It was at the end of October the shock came.