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Endor, against his private judgment and the will of Helen, accompanied her to Covent Garden. She was sure that after such a day he ought to go straight to bed. Curiously temperamental, she knew him to be, but never had she seen him so completely "bowled out." Like all people who live on their nerves, he was poised on a very fine thread; yet this threat of collapse was hardly justified by the thing that had occurred. He saw in it more than the facts seemed on the surface to warrant. She, on the contrary, was sure that a word from the Chief would put the whole thing right.

It was ten o'clock when they reached Covent Garden. Helen, by dint of tact amounting to diplomacy which she brought to bear on divers officials, was able at last to send one of them with an urgent message to Mr. Hartz's box. Soon, however, the answer came that Mr. Hartz was not there, and that to the best of the messenger's information he had not been there that evening.

A rebuff, for which Helen was half prepared, left