“Aunt—­”

“Wait a moment, Benis.  On second thought, if I were you I would not explain at all.  Simply tell her she is mistaken and stick to that.  She may believe you.  Promise her that you will never see Mary again--and you won’t” (grimly) “if I have anything to say about it.  Desire will come around.  I have a feeling—­”

“My dear Aunt!”

“Let me proceed, Benis.  I have a feeling that she will forgive you—­ once.  But let this be a lesson.  Desire is not a girl who will forgive twice.”

“You are all wrong, Aunt,” with weary patience.  “But it doesn’t matter.  Say nothing about this.  I am going to see John.”

“Not before you drink that coffee.”

Benis obediently drank.  Hurry would not mend what had happened.

“She has taken her travelling coat and hat,” pursued Aunt Caroline.  “Her train slippers, that taupe jersey-cloth suit, some fresh blouses, her dressing case, her night things and your photo off the dressing table.”

Benis smiled, a wry smile, and pushed back his cup.

“You don’t look fit to go anywhere,” said Aunt Caroline irritably.  “Why can’t you call John on the ’phone?”

“That would be quite modern,” said Benis.  “But—­I think I’ll see him.  I shan’t be long.”

It never once occurred to the professor, you will notice, that he might find John vanished also.  His obsessing thought had not been able to change his essential knowledge of either Desire or John.  If Desire had gone, she had gone because she could not stay.  But she had gone alone.  Just what determining thing had happened to make her flight imperative, Benis could not guess.  But he would not have been human if he had not blamed the other man.  “The fool has bungled it!” he thought.  “Lost control of his precious feelings, perhaps—­broken through—­said something—­frightened her.”  We may be sure that he cursed John in his heart very completely.

But when he entered John’s office and saw John he began to doubt even this.  There was no guilt on the doctor’s face—­no sign of apprehension or regret, no tremor of knowledge.  An angry-eyed young man looked up from a letter he was reading with nothing more serious than injured wonder in his gaze.

“Can you beat it?” asked John disgustedly, waving the letter.  “Aren’t women the limit?  Here’s this one going off without a word, or an excuse, or anything.  Just gone!  And a silly note thrown on my desk.  I tell you women have absolutely no sense of business obligation—­positively not!”

Spence restrained himself.

“You are speaking of—?”

“That nurse of mine, Miss Watkins.  Never a word about leaving yesterday, and today vanished—­vamoosed—­simply non est!  Look at what she says.—­”

Spence pushed the letter aside.

“There is something more important than that, John,” he said quietly, “Desire has left me.”

The two men stared at each other.  Spence was the first to speak.