Julia looked down at her laced fingers for a few moments without speaking.

“Jim isn’t coming back,” she said soberly.

“But what makes you say so, dear?  How do you know?”

“Well, I just know it,” Julia said, raising heavy-lidded eyes.  They looked at each other.

“But you aren’t telling me seriously, my child, that you two—­the most devoted couple I ever saw—­why, Julia, show a little courage, child!  Jim must be brought to his senses, that’s all.  We must think what’s wisest to do, and do it.  But, my dear, there’d be no marriages left in the world if people flew off the handle—­”

“I have been thinking, all night,” Julia said patiently, “and this is what I thought.  I want”—­she glanced restlessly about the room--"I want to get away from here!  That’ll take some little while.”

“Go away by all means, dear, if you want to, but don’t dismantle your house—­don’t make it impossible for the whole thing to blow over—–­”

“He won’t come back,” Julia repeated quietly.

“You don’t think so?” Miss Toland said uncomfortably.  “H’m!”

“No one must know, not even Doctor and Mother,” pursued Julia.  “No newspapers, nobody!”

“Well, in any case, that’s wise!” the older woman assented.  “And where will you go—­to Sally?”

“No!” Julia said with a quick shudder.  “Not anywhere near here!  No, I should rather like to give the impression that I will be with Jim, or near Jim,” she added slowly.

“Following him abroad with the baby, that’s quite natural!” Miss Toland approved.  “But why not stay a week or two in Sausalito, just to keep them from guessing?”

“Oh, I couldn’t!” Julia said, in a quick breath.

“And where’ll you go—­New York?”

“Oh, no!” Julia leaned back and shut her eyes.  The muscles of her throat worked.  “We were so happy in New York,” she said, with a sudden quivering of her lips.  But a moment’s struggle brought back her composure.  “I thought—­some little French village, or England,” she hazarded.

“England,” Miss Toland said promptly.  “This is no time of the year to take a child to France; besides, you get better milk in England, and if Anna was sick, there’s London, full of doctors who speak your own language.”

“So long as it’s quiet,” Julia said, “and we see nobody—­that’s all I care about.  Then if Jim should—­But I couldn’t wait here, with everybody asking, and inviting me places, and spying on me!”

“We’ll take some sort of little place in Oxfordshire,” Miss Toland said, “and then we can run up to London—­”

“‘We?’” Julia echoed.  She gazed bewilderedly at the other woman for a moment, then put her hands over her face and burst into tears.

A month like a nightmare followed.  Julia had never grown to care for the Pacific Avenue house; now it came to have an absolute horror for her.  She seemed to see it through a veil of darkness; she seemed to move under the burden of an intolerable weight.  Sometimes she found herself panting as if for air, as she went from silent room to silent room, and sometimes a memory unbearably poignant and dear smote her as with physical violence, and her face worked for a few moments, and she fought with tears.