Waiting until he heard the click of the outer door of the flat announcing Olivia’s departure in quest of unpolluted air, he went into his dressing-room and packed a suit-case with necessaries, including the despatch-case which contained his John Briggs papers and the accursed little black book. He met Myra in the hall, impassive. “If you had told me you were going on a journey, I would have packed for you. Does Mrs. Triona know?” “No,” said he. “She doesn’t. Wait.” He left her, and returned a few moments afterwards with a note he had scribbled. After all, Olivia must suffer no uncertainty. She must not dread his possible return. “Give that to Mrs. Triona.” “Are you coming back?” He looked at her as at a Fate in a black gown relieved by two solitary patches of white at the wrists. “Why do you ask me that?” “You look as if you weren’t,” said Myra. “I know there has been trouble to-day.” He had always stood in some awe of this efficient automaton of a woman, who had never given him a shadow of offence, but in whom he had divined a jealousy which he had always striven to propitiate. But now she awakened a forlorn sense of dignity. He picked up his suit-case. “What has that got to do with you, Myra?” “If Mrs. Triona’s room was on fire and I rushed in through the flames to save her, would you ask me what business it was of mine?” The artist in him wondered for a moment at her even, undramatic presentation of the hypothesis. He could not argue the point, however, knowing her life’s devotion to Olivia. So yielding to the unlit, pale blue eyes in the woman’s unemotional face, he said: “Yes. There is trouble. Deadly trouble. It’s all my doing. You quite understand that?” “It couldn’t be anything else, sir,” said Myra. “And so I’m going away and never coming back.” He moved to the door. She made the swift pace or two of the trained servant to open it for him. She stood for a few seconds quite rigid, her hand on the door-knob. Their eyes met. He saw in hers a cold hostility. Without a word he passed her, and heard the door slam behind him. It was when he reached the pavement, derelict on the wastes of the world, that his nerves gave way. Until the click of his brain at Worcester station, he had been demented. “Never again,” said he. * * * * *