Virginia stood as though she had been turned to stone.  Every nerve in her body seemed tense and quivering.  The cry which rose from her heart parted her death-white lips, but remained unuttered.  Wider and wider grew her eyes as she gazed with horror across the room.  The power of action seemed to be denied to her.  Her knees shook; a sort of paralysis seemed to stifle every sense of movement.  She swayed and nearly fell, but her hand met the corner of the mantelpiece and she held herself erect.  Gradually, second by second, the arrested life commenced to flow once more through her veins.  She had but one impulse—­to fly.  She thought nothing of the motive of her coming, only to place the door between her and this!  Unsteadily, but without accident, she passed through the door, and though her hand shook like a leaf, she managed to close it noiselessly again.  Somehow, she never quite knew how, she found herself outside in the corridor, and a moment later safe in her own room with the door bolted.  Then she threw herself upon the bed, and it seemed to her afterwards that she must have fainted!

* * * * *

Only a few hours later Guy, who had slept little that night, and had waked with a desperate resolve, stepped out of the lift and knocked at Virginia’s door.  There was no answer.  The waiter came out from the service-room and approached him.

“The young lady has left, sir,” he announced.

“Left?” Guy repeated aimlessly.  “When?  How long ago?”

“Barely half an hour, sir,” the man answered.

“She paid up her bill as I know, and left the key behind.  The rooms belong to her for another fortnight, but she didn’t seem as though she were coming back.”

“Did she leave any address for letters?” Guy asked.

“If you inquire at the office, sir, they will tell you,” the man answered.

Guy went down to the office.

“Can you tell me,” he asked, “if Miss Longworth has left any address?”

The man shook his head.

“She left an hour ago, sir,” he said.  “She said there would be no letters, and if we liked we could let her rooms, as she was certain not to come back.”

“You cannot help me to find her, then?” Guy asked.  “I am the Duke of Mowbray, and I should be exceedingly obliged to any one who could help me to discover this young lady.”

They were all sent for at once, porter, commissionaire, hall-boy.  The information he was able to obtain, however, was scanty indeed.  Virginia had simply told the cabman, who had taken her and her luggage away, to drive along the Strand toward Charing Cross.

Guy drove back to Grosvenor Square, and insisted upon going up to his aunt’s room.  She received him under protest in her dressing-gown.

“My dear Guy,” she expostulated, “what is the meaning of this?  You know that I am never visible until luncheon time.”

“Forgive me?” he said.  “I scarcely know what I am doing this morning.”  “Well, what is it?” she demanded.