When he was gone, Miriam sat for a short time alone.  She had not foreseen this sequel of yesterday’s event.  In spite of all the promptings of her jealous fear, she had striven to explain Cecily’s visit in some harmless way.  Mean what it might, it tortured her; but, in her ignorance of what was happening between Cecily and her husband, she tried to believe that Mallard was perhaps acting the part of reconciler—­not an unlikely thing, as her better judgment told her.  Now she could no longer listen to such calm suggestions.  Cecily had abandoned her home, and with Mallard’s knowledge, if not at his persuasion.

She thought of Reuben with all but hatred.  He was the cause of the despair which had come upon her.  The abhorrence with which she regarded his vices—­no whit less strong for all her changed habits of thought—­blended now with the sense of personal injury; this only had been lacking to destroy what natural tenderness remained in her feeling towards him.  Cecily she hated, without the power of condemning her as she formerly would have done.  The old voice of conscience was not mute, but Miriam turned from it with sullen scorn.  If Cecily declared her marriage at an end, what fault could reason find with her?  If she acted undisguisedly as a free woman, how was she to blame?  Reuben’s praise of her might still keep its truth.  And the unwilling conviction of this was one of Miriam’s sharpest torments.  She would have liked to regard her with disdainful condemnation, or a fugitive wife, a dishonoured woman.  But the power of sincerely judging thus was gone.  Reuben had taunted her amiss.

Presently she left her room and went to seek Eleanor.  Mrs. Spence was writing; she laid down her pen, and glanced at Miriam, but did not speak.

“Cecily has left her home,” Miriam said, with matter-of-fact brevity.

Eleanor stood up.

“Parted from him?”

“It seems be didn’t go to the house till late last night.  She had left in the afternoon, and did not come back”

“Then they have not met?”.

“No.”

“And had Cecily heard?”

“There’s no knowing.”

“Of course, she has gone to Mrs. Lessingham.”

“I think not,” replied Miriam, turning away.

“Why?”

But Miriam would give no definite answer.  Neither did she hint at the special grounds of her suspicion.  Presently she left the room as she had entered, dispirited and indisposed for talk.

Elgar walked on to the studios.  He found Mallard’s door, and was beginning to ascend the stairs, when the artist himself appeared at the top of them, on the point of going out.  He recognized his visitor with a grim movement of brows and lips, and without speaking turned back.  Reuben reached the door, which remained open, and entered.  Mallard, who stood there in the ante-room, looked at him inquiringly.

“I want a few minutes’ talk with you, if you please,” said Elgar.