here myself
this morning!" They looked at each other now equally sincere and aghast.

"But you have seen him; you've been near him?" he demanded.

She gasped out the whole truth. "This morning! He left me. He kissed
me."

"Then, my God, where is he?" He gave a wide glance around him. Then
raising his voice, "Stay where you are!" he commanded, and began to run
from her through the trees.

She stood with her hand to her breast, with the empty pouch spinning in
front of her, hearing him crashing in the shrubbery. Then, in sudden
panic at finding herself alone, she fled back down the willow avenue,
and burst out on the broad drive in full view of the house.

Kerr was not in sight, but there was a tremor of disturbance where all
had been still. Clara's face appeared at one of the upper windows and
looked down into the garden. Then Mrs. Herrick came down the stairs,
and, showing an anxious profile as she passed the door, hurried away
along the lower hall. There was a flutter in the servants' quarter, and
from a side door the coachman appeared hatless, in his shirt sleeves,
and ran toward the stable. All the people of the house seemed to be
running to and fro, but she didn't see Harry. This struck her with
unreasoning terror. She fled up the drive, and Clara's small face at the
window watched her.

As she came into the hall she heard Kerr's voice. He was at the
telephone speaking names she had never heard in sentences whose meaning
was too much for her stunned senses to take in; but none the less while
she listened the feeling crept over her that there was some strange
revolution taking place in him. It might be transformation; it might be
only a swift increase of his original power. Whatever it was, he seemed
to her superhuman. The house was full of him--full of his rapid
movement, his ringing orders. If he knew that the sapphire was gone,
what was the meaning of this bold command? Was he, knowing all lost,
plunging gallantly into the clutches of his enemies? Or was this only a
blind, a splendid piece of effrontery to cover his too long delayed
retreat? She sat like a jointless thing on the fauteuil in the large
hall, and all at once saw him in front of her.

She looked at his hat, his overcoat, his slim, glittering stick--all
symbols of departure.

"Wait here," he said, and turned away.

She watched his shadow dance across the flagging, and as it slipped over
the threshold she thought dully that now the sapphire w