as willing to sell it now; there was such a superb affair
down at Shumway's Music Room. Had Mr. Bailey seen it?

Ethie's voice was not quite steady, for she was not accustomed to
deception of this kind, and the first step was hard. But Mr. Bailey was
not at all suspicious, and concluded the bargain at once; and two hours
later Ethie's piano was standing between the south windows of Mrs.
Bailey's apartment, and Ethie, in her own room, was counting a roll of
three hundred dollars, and deciding how far it would go.

"There's my pearls," she said, "if worst comes to worst I can sell them
and my diamond ring."

She did not mean Daisy's ring. She would not barter that, or take it
with her, either. Daisy never intended it for a runaway wife, and
Ethelyn must leave it where Richard would find it when he came back and
found her gone. And then as Ethie in her anger exulted over Richard's
surprise and possible sorrow when he found himself deserted, some demon
from the pit whispered in her ear, "Give him back the wedding ring.
Leave that for him, too, and so remove every tie which once bound you
to him."

It was hard to put off Daisy's ring, and Ethelyn paused and reflected as
the clear stone seemed to reflect the fair, innocent face hanging on the
walls at Olney. But Ethie argued that she had no right to it, and so the
dead girl's ring was laid aside, and then the trembling fingers
fluttered about the plain gold band bearing the date of her marriage.
But when she essayed to remove that, too, blood-red circles danced
before her eyes, and such a terror seized her that her hands dropped
powerless into her lap and the ring remained in its place.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the cars for Olney left at
seven. She was going that way as far as Milford, where she could take
another route to the East. She would thus throw Richard off the track if
he tried to follow her, and also avoid immediate remark in the hotel.
They would think it quite natural that in her husband's absence she
should go for a few days to Olney, she reasoned; and they did think so
in the office when at six she asked that her trunk be taken to the
station. Her rooms were all in order. She had made them so herself,
sweeping and dusting, and even leaving Richard's dressing-gown and
slippers by the chair where he usually sat the evenings he was at home.
The vacancy left by the piano would strike him at once, she knew, and so
she moved a tall bookcase up t