fingered the string of pearls about her rounded throat. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Her attitude changed. She stood with her head raised, apparently listening. Then reluctantly, as in obedience to some unwelcome summons, she moved swiftly across the room to the outstanding, painted satin-wood escritoire, passed at the back of it, and the young man found himself alone.

VII

Though usually an excellent sleeper, Laurence passed a restless night. Like most sane persons, he was disposed to resent that which he could not account for; and, with the best will in the world to evolve ingenious hypotheses explanatory of her disappearance, the manner of his sweet companion's going remained a mystery. He had examined the escritoire, and found it locked. He had also examined the wall-space in its vicinity. This was hung, from cornice to wainscot, with pale yellow-and-white brocade, as was all the room. But neither behind the brocade, nor in the wainscot, was any door or sliding panel discoverable. Indeed, when he came to think of it, remembering the structure of the house as he had seen it on his way along the south front to the stables, that side of the room consisted of a blank wall, doorless and windowless. This fact, when he realised it, caused Laurence something of a shock. It was unpleasant to him. And so he took refuge in scepticism. He laughed at himself, declaring that the unwholesome atmosphere of the house, and the lonely, uneventful life he was compelled to lead, were breeding morbid fancies in him. All that talk about woman and the relation of the sexes had stamped itself upon his mind in an exaggerated way, thanks to his surroundings. The musky scent of the orchids had a word to say in the matter too, no doubt. So had his revulsion from the gross suggestions of the scene represented on the tapestry curtain. Heavy sleep, amounting almost to torpor, induced by the heavy atmosphere, had fallen upon him directly after he had entered that strangely engaging and familiar room. And, in that sleep, imagination had created a woman who should embody all that which the room and its furnishings suggested—an ideal woman, far away alike from the brilliant young leader of smart society whom he had married—but on this clause Laurence refused to allow his thoughts to dwell—and from the mere human brood-mare, whom his uncle pronounced to be the only admissible exponent of the Eternal Feminine. He had dreamed a poem—one of those poems he kept at the bottom of his despatch-box, and had never felt any inclination to read aloud to Virginia—had dreamed instead of writing it, that was all.

Laurence got out 

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