It was ten o'clock the next day, a silent gray day, when Aunt Kate let herself into the apartment, and "let out," to use her own phrase, a startled exclamation at finding her young daughter-in-law deeply asleep in her bed. Norma, a vision of cloudy dark tumbled hair and beautiful sleepy blue eyes, half-strangled the older woman in a rapturous embrace, and explained that she had come home the night before, and eaten the chicken stew, and perhaps overslept—at any rate would love some coffee.

Something faintly shadowed in her aunt's welcome, however, was immediately apparent, and Norma asked, with a trace of anxiety, if Rose's babies were well. For answer her aunt merely asked if Wolf had telephoned.

"Wolf!" said Wolf's wife. "Is he home?"

"My dear," Mrs. Sheridan said. "He's going—he's gone!—to California!"

Norma did not move. But the colour went out of her face, and the brightness from her eyes.

"Gone!" she whispered.

"Well—he goes to-day! At six o'clock——"

"At six o'clock!" Norma leaped from her bed, stood with clenched hands and wild eyes, thinking, in the middle of the floor. "It's twenty-two minutes past ten," she breathed. "Where does he leave?"

"Rose and I were to see him at the Grand Central at quarter past five," his mother began, catching the contagious excitement. "But, darling, I don't know where you can get him before that!—Here, let me do that," she added, for Norma had dashed into the kitchen, and was measuring coffee recklessly. A brown stream trickled to the floor.

"Oh, Lord—Lord—help me to get hold of him somewhere!" she heard Norma breathe. "And you weren't going to let me know—but it's my fault," she said, putting her hands over her face, and rocking to and fro in desperate suspense. "Oh, how can I get him?—I must! Oh, Aunt Kate—help me! Oh, I'm not even dressed—and that clock says half-past ten! Aunt Kate, will you help me!"

"Norma, my darling," her aunt said, arresting the whirling little figure with a big arm, and looking down at her with all the love and sadness of her great heart in her face, "why do you want to see him, dear? He told me—he had to tell his mother, poor boy, for his heart is broken—that you were not going with him!"

"Oh, but Aunt Kate—he'll have to wait for me!" Norma said, stamping a slippered foot, and beginning to cry with hurt and helplessness. "Oh, won't you help me? You always help me! Don't—don't mind what I said to Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please—please——"

"But, Baby—you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't—hurt him again, Norma!"

"But he's going off—without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom, and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said, passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it would have broken my heart! You know how I love him! We'll catch him somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone—or else Harry——"

She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later.

"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere," she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must—I've something to tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin with—it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by burning—every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!"

She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say.

"Perhaps some day when it's hot—and the jelly doesn't jell—and the children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want you to remind me of Leslie—and the Craigies—or better, of what a beast I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if Wolf will forgive me—and he always does——"

"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently.

Norma looked a little anxious.

"I wrote him in Philadelphia," she said, "but he won't get that letter. Oh, Aunt Kate—if we don't find him! But we will—if I have to walk up to him in the station the last minute—and stop him——"

"Ah, Norma, you love him!" his mother said, in a great burst of thankfulness. "And may God be thanked for all His goodness! That's all I care about—that you love him, and that you two will be together again. We'll get hold of him, dear, somehow——!"

"But, my darling," she added, coming presently to the bedroom door to see the dashing little feathered hat go on, and the dotted veil pinned with exquisite nicety over Norma's glowing face, and the belted brown coat and loose brown fur rapidly assumed, "you're not wearing your mourning!"

"Not to-day," Norma said, abstractedly. And aloud she read a list:

"Bank; Grand Central; drawing-room; new suit-case; notary for power of attorney; Kitty Barry; telephone Chris, Leslie, Annie; telephone Regina about trunks. Can we be back here at say—four, Aunt Kate?"

"But what's all that for?" her aunt asked, dazedly.

Norma looked at a check book; put it in her coat pocket. Then as her aunt's question reached her preoccupied mind, she turned toward her with a puzzled expression.

"Why, Aunt Kate—you don't seem to understand; I'm going with Wolf to California this evening."