There were other times, when life seemed less sad than dull.  Julia grew sick of loneliness, sick of silence; she stared at her face in the mirror, when she was slowly dressing in the morning; stared at herself again at night—­as if marvelling at this woman who was a wife, and a mother, and deserted in her young bloom.  Deserted—­ her husband had gone away from her, and she knew no way to bring him back.  A weary flatness of spirit descended upon her; it seemed a part of the howling winter storms, the dark and heavy weather.

For the servants other positions were quickly found, the furniture was stored, the motor car sold.  On the last day on which the last was at her disposal, Julia, with Ellie and the baby, drove about downtown, and disposed of several odds and ends of business.  She left the keys of the Pacific Avenue house at the agent’s office, not without an agonized memory of the day she had first called for them, more than two years ago.  She went to the bank, and was instantly invited into the manager’s office and given a luxurious chair.

“Well, Mrs. Studdiford,” said Mr. Perry pleasantly, “what brings you out in this dreadful weather?”

“Good-byes,” Julia said, flinging back her veil, and laying her muff aside.  “Miss Toland and I will probably leave for New York on the seventh, and sail as soon as we can after we get there.  I want to take a letter of credit, and I want to know just how I stand here.”

Mr. Perry touched a button, the letter of credit was duly made out, a clerk came in with a little slip, which he handed to Mr. Perry.

“Ah, yes, yes, indeed!  And where is Doctor Studdiford now?  In Berlin?  Lovely city.  You’ll like Berlin,” said Mr. Perry.  He glanced at the slip.  “Thirty-seven thousand, two hundred and twenty dollars, Mrs. Studdiford,” said he.  “Transferred to your name a month ago.

“I had no idea it was so much!” Julia said, her heart turning to lead.  Why had he given her so much?

Mr. Perry, bowing her out, laughed that that was a fault on the right side, and Julia left the bank, with its brightly lighted warm atmosphere tinged with the odour of ink and polished wood and rubber flooring, and its windows streaming with rain.  She got into the motor car again, and took little Anna on her lap.

“Now I think we’ll drop you at the hotel, Ellie,” said she, “and I’ll take the baby out to say good-bye to my mother.”

“Oh, Mrs. Studdiford, it’s raining something terrible!” protested the maid.

“Yes, I know,” Julia agreed, looking a little vaguely out of the blurred window.  “But you see to-morrow may be just as bad, and we’ve got her all dressed and out now.  So you go home and pack, and I’ll just fly out there and fly back.  Day after to-morrow I’ve promised to take her to Sausalito, and the day after that we start!”