by the early tram to Liverpool, in which case she might easily not have had time to write.  But in that case would not Mrs. Jordan have written “Gone to America”?  Her heart stood still with another thought—­could she have gone with Kendal?  Granting that she had made up her mind to marry him, it would be just Elfrida’s strange, sensational way.  Janet walked the floor in a restless agony, mechanically tearing the note into little, strips.  She must know—­she must find out.  She would write and ask him for something—­for what?  A book, a paper—­the New Monthly, and she must have some particular reason.  She sat down to write, and pressed her fingers upon her throbbing eyes in the effort to summon a particular reason.  It was as far from her as ever when the maid knocked and came in with a note from Kendal asking them to go to see Miss Rehan in “As You Like It” that evening —­a note fragrant of tobacco, not an hour old.

“You needn’t wait, Jessie,” she said.  “I’ll send an answer later;” and the maid had hardly left the room before Janet was sobbing silently and helplessly with her head on the table.  As the day passed however, Elfrida’s conduct seemed less unforgivable, and by dinner-time she was able to talk of it with simple wonder, which became more tolerant still in the course of the evening, when she discovered that Kendal was as ignorant and as astonished as they themselves.

“She will write,” Janet said hopefully; but a week passed and Elfrida did not write.  A settled disquietude began to make itself felt between the Cardiffs.  Accepting each other’s silence for the statement that Elfrida had sent no word, they ceased to talk of her—­as a topic her departure had become painful to both of them.  Janet’s anxiety finally conquered her scruples, and she betook herself to Essex Court to inquire of Mrs. Jordan.  That lady was provokingly mysterious, and made the difficulty of ascertaining that she knew nothing whatever about Miss Bell’s movements as great as possible.  Janet saw an acquaintance with some collateral circumstance in her eyes, however, and was just turning away irritated by her vain attempts to obtain it, when Mrs. Jordan, decided that the pleasure of the revelation would be, after all, greater than the pleasure of shielding the facts.

“Wether it ’as anything to do with Miss Bell or not, of course I can’t say,” Mrs. Jordan remarked, with conscientious hypocrisy, “but Mr. Ticke, he left town that same mornin’.”  She looked disappointed when Miss Cardiff received this important detail indifferently.

“Oh, nothing whatever,” Janet replied, with additional annoyance that Elfrida should have subjected herself to such an insinuation.  Janet had a thoroughgoing dislike to Golightly Ticke.  On her way back in the omnibus she reflected on the coincidence, however, and in the end she did not mention it to her father.