ereft of
dear responsibilities. "No doubt they're happy in their own way."

And that, for a long time, was the end of the matter. The house, cleaned
and polished, glittered like the instrument room of a man-of-war, and no
master or mistress came to bestow on Wiggleswick's toil the meed of their
approbation. The old man settled down again to well-earned repose, and the
house grew dusty and dingy again, and dustier and dingier as the weeks went
on.

It has been before stated that things happen slowly in Nunsmere, even the
reawakening of Zora's nostalgia for the Great World and Life and the
Secrets of the Earth. But things do happen there eventually, and the time
came when Zora found herself once again too big for the little house. She
missed Emmy's periodical visits. She missed the regulation of Septimus. She
missed her little motor expeditions with Sypher, who had sold his car and
was about to sell "The Kurhaus, Kilburn Priory." The Cure seemed to have
transformed itself from his heart to his nerves. He talked of it--or so it
appeared to her--with more braggadocio than enthusiasm. He could converse
of little else. It was going to smash Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy to the
shreds of its ointment boxes. The deepening vertical line between the
man's brows she did not notice, nor did she interpret the wistful look in
his eyes when he claimed her help. She was tired of the Cure and the Remedy
and Sypher's fantastic need of her as ally. She wanted Life, real,
quivering human Life. It was certainly not to be found in Nunsmere, where
faded lives were laid away in lavender. For sheer sensations she began to
tolerate the cynical analysis of the Literary Man from London. She must go
forth on her journeyings again. She had already toyed with the idea when,
with Septimus's aid, she had mapped out voyages round the world. Now she
must follow it in strenuous earnest. The Callenders had cabled her an
invitation to come out at once to Los Angeles. She cabled back an
acceptance.

"So you're going away from me?" said Sypher, when she announced her
departure.

There was a hint of reproach in his voice which she resented.

"You told me in Monte Carlo that I ought to have a mission in life. I can't
find it here, so I'm going to seek one in California. What happens in this
Sleepy Hollow of a place that a live woman can concern herself with?"

"There's Sypher's Cure--"

"My dear Mr. Sypher!" she laughed protestingly.

"Oh," said he, "y