“Here is advertising enough to satisfy the greediest appetite for print,” she remarked grimly.

“He’s on one of his brutal drunks.”  The words seemed to grit in the girl’s throat.  “I wish he were dead!  Oh, I wish he were dead!”

Miss Van Arsdale laid hold on her shoulders and shook her hard.  “Listen to me, Irene Welland.  You’re on the way to hysterics or some such foolishness.  I won’t have it!  Do you understand?  Are you listening to me?”

“I’m listening.  But it won’t make any difference what you say.”

“Look at me.  Don’t stare into nothingness that way.  Have you read this?”

“Enough of it.  It ends everything.”

“I should hope so, indeed.  My dear!” The woman’s voice changed and softened.  “You haven’t found that you cared for him, after all, more than you thought?  It isn’t that?”

“No; it isn’t that.  It’s the beastliness of the whole thing.  It’s the disgrace.”

Miss Van Arsdale turned to the paper again.

“Your name isn’t given.”

“It might as well be.  As soon as it gets back to New York, every one will know.”

“If I read correctly between the lines of this scurrilous thing, Mr. Holmesley gave what was to have been his bachelor dinner, took too much to drink, and suggested that every man there go on a separate search for the lost bride offering two thousand dollars reward for the one who found her.  Apparently it was to have been quite private, but it leaked out.  There’s a hint that he had been drinking heavily for some days.”

“My fault,” declared Io feverishly.  “He told me once that if ever I played anything but fair with him, he’d go to the devil the quickest way he could.”

“Then he’s a coward,” pronounced Miss Van Arsdale vigorously.

“What am I?  I didn’t play fair with him.  I practically jilted him without even letting him know why.”

Miss Van Arsdale frowned.  “Didn’t you send him word?”

“Yes.  I telegraphed him.  I told him I’d write and explain.  I haven’t written.  How could I explain?  What was there to say?  But I ought to have said something.  Oh, Miss Van Arsdale, why didn’t I write!”

“But you did intend to go on and face him and have it out.  You told me that.”

A faint tinge of color relieved the white rigidity of Io’s face.  “Yes,” she agreed.  “I did mean it.  Now it’s too late and I’m disgraced.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.  And don’t waste yourself in self-pity.  To-morrow you’ll see things clearer, after you’ve slept.”

“Sleep?  I couldn’t.”  She pressed both hands to her temples, lifting tragic and lustrous eyes to her companion.  “I think my head is going to burst from trying not to think.”

After some hesitancy Miss Van Arsdale went to a wall-cabinet, took out a phial, shook into her hand two little pellets, and returned the phial, carefully locking the cabinet upon it.