That day Letty received a note from her husband, saying that important business at the warehouse in London required his immediate presence, and that he was gone by the coach: he might be some weeks away. Letty sat for some time as thunderstruck. Suddenly she sprang up, and ran upstairs. His travelling portmanteaus were there; she could discover no linen nor clothes taken away. His dressing-case stood as usual on his table. What could it mean? Had he gone off in disgust at the visit of Mrs. Heritage? Surely that could not have caused him to go off without any change of clothes. A frightful idea came over her—had he gone to drown or destroy himself? She had seen him exhibit, more than once, symptoms of _delirium tremens_. She flung on a shawl, seized her bonnet, and away to the warehouse. Thomas Barnsdale said he certainly was gone by coach. What the important business could be was quite unknown to him: he had heard of nothing pressing, and he thought he should have done had there been such. “But what will he do without clothes? I must send after him a supply.” “He must have taken clothes, ma’am,” said Thomas Barnsdale. “He took a large new portmanteau with him, for the porter carried it to the coach.” Letty was more and more confounded. Then this flight was preconcerted! She left the warehouse without a word, and returned home with a heart loaded to its last power of endurance with misery. What should she do? Go after him? No. Seek counsel from her parents, and brother, and sister? No. She shrunk from communicating and diffusing her distress. She sat down and wrote to him at the London warehouse a letter which must have touched a harder heart than Thorsby’s. Return of post brought a letter full of expressions of love and regret, that he was obliged to go away so suddenly, but bidding her be of good cheer, and make herself happy till his return. That letter did not much lighten Letty’s trouble. The late conduct and habits of Thorsby, and this going away evidently on a concerted plan, were things not to be got over. Very, very sad was that once so gay heart. But Letty determined not to give up all hope lightly. She wrote again to her husband, and received again a cheerful, loving reply. She resolved to set herself to look after the business with Thomas Barnsdale, and by attendance at the counting-house, to dissipate the thoughts which haunted her solitude. Thomas Barnsdale seemed pleased at her thinking of business, and explained matters concerning which he wanted advice, but which Mr. Thorsby of late did not give. Letty caught up the main ideas of the business rapidly, and Barnsdale said it would be the salvation of the concern if she gave her attention to it. Most of the day she spent at the counting-house, and the nurse and little Leonard came to her every now and then. The correspondence betwixt her and her husband went on with a fair and even loving tone.