When she entered the house her first feeling was that the old atmosphere had returned, the old suspense, the old waiting, the old horror of impending calamity.  A nervous dread made her hesitate to mount the steps, to go to her room, to inquire in a natural voice for the children.  It was imaginary, of course, she assured herself, but it was very vivid as long as it lasted.  Then she noticed that the usual order of the hall was disturbed, and when she rang, Burrows came, with a hurried, apologetic manner, after keeping her waiting.  Mrs. Fowler’s fur scarf hung on the massive oak post of the staircase; the cards in the little tray on the hail table were scattered about; and the petals of a yellow chrysanthemum were strewn over the carpet.

Burrows, instead of explaining the confusion, appeared embarrassed when she questioned him, and spurred by a sharp foreboding, she ran up the stairs to her mother-in-law’s sitting-room.  At her entrance a trembling voice wailed in a tone of remonstrance: 

“Oh, Gabriella, have you been out?”

“Yes, I’ve been out.  Mamma, what is the matter?”

“I looked for you everywhere.  Archibald has been here, but he has just gone out again.  I have never seen him so deeply moved—­so—­so indignant—­” Mrs. Fowler broke off, bit her lip nervously, and paused while she tried to swallow her sobs.  Her hat lay on a chair at her side, and in her hands she held a pair of half-soiled white gloves, which she smoothed out on her knee, as if she were hardly aware of what she was doing.  In her blue eyes, so like George’s, there was an agonizing terror and suspense.  Her usually florid face was pale to the lips; and this pallor appeared to accentuate the dark, faintly lined shadows beneath her eyes and the grayness of her rigidly waved hair.

“Courage!” said Gabriella in a whisper to herself, and aloud she asked gently:  “Dear mamma, what is it?  Don’t be afraid.  I can bear it.”

“Archibald has ordered George out of the house.  He—­George, I mean—­had given him his promise not to see Florrie again, and it seems that he—­he broke it.  There has been a dreadful scene.  I never imagined that Archibald could be so angry.  He was terrible—­and he is ill anyway and in great trouble about his financial affairs.  I have been worried to death about him for weeks.  He says things are going so badly downtown that he can’t stave off the crash any longer, and now—­this—­this—­” She broke down utterly, burying her convulsed face in her hands, which even in the instant of horror and tragedy, Gabriella noticed, had been manicured since the morning.  “George has gone—­we think he has gone off with Florrie,” she cried, “and he—­he will never come back as long as Archibald lives.”