. She
slipped out to post it that very night, and lay down with the full
intention of going to Scotland Yard the next morning. But in the morning
she was delayed for an hour only; but that hour was fatal to her plans.
When the police visited the house in Vernon Court, they found that the
rooms were empty, and that Cynthia and her father had disappeared.
Nobody knew anything about them; and the police retired in an
exceedingly bad humor, pouring anathemas upon Sabina's head. But Sabina
did not care; she had received news which had stupefied her for a time
and hindered her in the execution of her designs--little Dick Vane was
dead.

The child had never rallied from the accident which had befallen him.
For several days and nights he had lain in a state of coma; and then,
still unconscious, he had passed away. His watchers scarcely knew at
what moment he ceased to breathe; even the General, who had seldom left
his side, could not tell exactly when the child died. So peacefully the
little life came to a close that it seemed only that his sleep was
preternaturally long. And with him a long course of perplexity and
deceit seemed likely also to have its end.

Mrs. Vane had disappointed and displeased the General during the boy's
illness; she had steadily refused to nurse him--even to see him, towards
the end. The General was an easy and indulgent husband, but he noticed
that his wife seemed to have no love for the child who was all in all to
him. The worst came when Flossy refused to look at the boy's dead face
when he was gone. The General reproached her for her hardness of heart,
and declared bitterly that the child had never known a mother's love.
And Flossy did not easily forgive the imputation, although she professed
to accept it meekly, and to excuse herself by saying that her nerves
were too delicate to bear the shock of seeing a dead child.

Troubles seemed to heap themselves upon the General's head. His boy had
gone; Enid, whom he tenderly loved, had left his house; Hubert, to whom
also he was much attached, lay ill again, and was scarcely expected to
recover. By the time the funeral was over, the General had worked
himself up to such a state of nervous anxiety, that it was felt by his
friends that some immediate change must be made in his manner of life.
And here a suggestion of Flossy's became unexpectedly useful--she
proposed that the General should go to his sister's for a time, and that
she should stay at Huber