“Yes, do, for God's sake, Connie,” said Morland. She nodded, smiled the ghost of her bright smile, and, glad of escape, went upstairs. The three sat in gloomy silence, broken only by Mr. Hardacre's maledictions on his gout. It was a bitter hour for them. In a few moments Connie burst into the room, with a letter in her hand. She looked scared. “We can't find her. She's not in the house.” “Not in the house!” shrieked Mrs. Hardacre. Morland brought his hand down heavily on the piano. “I heard the front door slam half an hour ago!” “This is addressed to you, Mrs. Hardacre. It was stuck in her looking-glass.” Mrs. Hardacre opened the note with shaky fingers. It ran: _“I mean what I say. I had better leave you all, at least till after Wednesday. My stopping here would be more than you or I could stand.”_ Mr. Hardacre staggered with a gasp of pain to his feet, and his weak eyes glared savagely out of his puffy red face. “Damme, she must come back! If she does n't sleep here to-night, I'll cut her off. I won't have anything more to do with her. She has got to come back.” “All right. Go and tell her, then,” retorted his wife. “Where do you suppose you are going to find her?” “Oh, she is sure to have gone to my house,” said Connie. “But suppose she has n't,” said Morland, anxiously. “She was in such a state that anything is possible.” “Come with me if you like. The brougham is here.” “And you go too, Eliza, and bring her home with you, d' ye hear?” cried Mr. Hardacre. “If you don't, she'll never set foot in my house again. I'm damned if she shall!” His wife looked at him queerly for a moment; then she meekly answered: “Very well, Benjamin.” Once only during their long married life had she flouted him when he had spoken to her like that. Then in ungovernable fury he had thrown a boot at her head. Mr. Hardacre glared at Morland and Connie, and scrambled cursing into his chair. Chapter XXIII--NORMA'S HOUR SOMETHING had happened--something mysterious, quickening; a pulsation of the inmost harmonies of life. Its tremendous significance Jimmie dared not conjecture. It was to be interpreted by the wisdom of the simplest, yet that interpretation he put aside. It staggered reason. It was enough for them to have met together in an unimagined intimacy of emotion, to have shared the throb of this spiritual happening.