in response without replying. As a matter of fact she, too, had made up her mind in the night not to reopen the subject upon which she and Frank were so completely at variance.

Perhaps Jack was wrong in this and in the whole proceeding which followed. Except to say that she had the right to use her own judgment—she never attempted to justify herself.

As soon as she had arranged her household matters and had seen her children, she went into her private sitting room and, by using her telephone for an hour or more, secured the information which she desired.

She was able to locate Captain MacDonnell and also to learn that he was still alive. Moreover, Frank telegraphed this same fact while she was still at the telephone.[140]

[140]

Then Jack sent word for Olive and Frieda to come to her bedroom, and when they arrived she carefully closed the door.

They found her packing a small bag.

"What is it, Jack? Are you going up to London to join Frank?" Frieda inquired, she and Olive having been told nothing of the contents of Captain MacDonnell's letter, nor that there was such a letter in existence.

Jack had taken off her morning dress and put on a light flannel wrapper of pale grey with a white collar, as she wished to proceed with her packing more readily.

At Frieda's question she shook her head quietly and sat down in a big chair for a moment, asking Olive and Frieda also to be seated.

"No; I am not going to Frank," she explained, "indeed, although I am forced to go up to London, I don't want him to know I am there, nor where he can find me for the next day or so. Afterwards I will, of course, write to him."

Seeing that Olive and Frieda were becoming more mystified than enlightened by her explanation, and that she was in reality talking more to herself than to them, Jack hesitated for a moment.[141]

[141]

"Perhaps you won't approve what I am planning to do any more than Frank does," Jack continued, "but Captain MacDonnell has written to ask that I come to him in France where he may be dying, and I am going. Frank has said I must not, but I am going anyway. I told him so last night, but I don't believe he understood I really meant what I said."

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