It says, 'delayed in
transmission.'"

Helen turned round, her face radiant.

"When ought he to get here?"

The lawyer was silent for a moment as if calculating. Then, looking
up, he said:

"The _Abyssinia_ is not a very fast boat. I suppose she is the best he
could get. She's due at Southampton two weeks from to-day. A week
after that, he ought to be in New York--providing nothing happens."

Helen, who was still reading and re-reading the cablegram, looked up
quickly. With a note of alarm in her voice, she exclaimed:

"Providing nothing happens! What could happen?"

"Oh, nothing serious, of course. In these days of the wireless nothing
ever happens to steamers. One is safer traveling on the sea than on
land. I didn't mean anything serious, but merely that sometimes boats
are delayed by bad weather or by fog. That prevents them arriving on
schedule time."

Almost three months had slipped by since Kenneth's departure from New
York. To Helen it had seemed so many years. She had tried to be
contented and happy for Ray's sake. She entertained a good deal,
giving dinner and theater parties, keeping open house, playing
graciously the role of chatelaine in the absence of her lord, to all
outward appearances as gay and light-hearted as ever. Only Ray and her
immediate friends knew that the gayety was forced.

The poison had done its deadly work. The few words uttered by Signor
Keralio that afternoon shortly after her husband's departure had burnt
deep into her mind like letters of fire. Well she guessed the object
of the wily Italian in speaking as he did. It availed him nothing, and
she only despised him the more. It was cowardly, contemptible, and,
from such a source, absolutely unworthy of belief. Yet secretly it
worried her just the same. She had always considered Kenneth's life an
open book. She thought she knew his every action, his every thought.
The mere suggestion that her husband might have other interests, other
attachments of which she knew nothing took her so by surprise that she
was disarmed, powerless to answer. The innuendo that he might be
unfaithful had gone through her heart like a knife. Of course it was
quite ridiculous. He was not that kind of man. It was true he had
often gone away on trips that seemed unnecessary, and now she came to
think of it Kenneth's absences had of late been both frequent and
mysterious. Then, too, she had no idea of the extent of his operations