e world?"

"More than anything in the world," I admitted absently.

"There's a chance now?"

"Yes, I suppose there's a chance now."

She said nothing more, but the next morning as I was getting into my
overcoat, she sent me word that she wished to speak to me again before I
went out.

"I'll be up in a minute," I answered, and I had turned to follow the
maid up the staircase, when a sharp ring at the telephone distracted my
attention.

"Come down in five minutes if you can," said a voice. "You're wanted
badly about the B. and R. deal."

"Is your mistress ill?" I enquired, turning from the telephone to take
up my overcoat.

"I think not, sir," replied the woman, "she is dressing."

"Then tell her I'm called away, but I will see her at luncheon," I
answered hurriedly, as I rushed out.

Upon reaching my office, I found that my presence was required in
Washington before two o'clock, and as I had not time to return home, I
telephoned Sally for my bag, which she sent down to the station by
Micah, the coachman.

"I hope to return early to-morrow," I said to the negro from the
platform, as the train pulled out.

In my anxiety over the possible collapse of the important B. and R.
deal, the message that Sally had sent me that morning was crowded for
several hours out of my thoughts. When I remembered it later in the
afternoon, I sent her a telegram explaining my absence; and my
conscience, which had troubled me for a moment, was appeased by this
attention that would prove to her that even in the midst of my business
worries I had not forgotten her. There was, indeed, I assured myself, no
cause for the sudden throb of anxiety, almost of apprehension, I had
felt at the recollection of the message that I had disregarded. She had
looked stronger yesterday; I had commented at dinner on the fine flush
in her cheeks; and the pain, which had caused me such sharp distress
while it lasted, had vanished entirely for the last thirty-six hours.
Then the sound of her voice, with its note of appeal, of helplessness,
of terror, when she had called upon George at the reception, returned to
me as if it were spoken audibly somewhere in my brain. I saw her eyes,
wide and bright, as they had been when they looked straight beyond me in
search of help, and her slender, swaying figure in its gown of a pale
sea-foam shade that was stained from bosom to hem with the red streak of
the wine. "Yet there is nothing to worry about," I thought, a