Everything in the room spoke of a loss, of an essence gone, of its
soul and life departed. John Perkins stood among the dead remains
with a queer feeling of desolation in his heart.

He began to set the rooms tidy as well as he could. When he touched
her clothes a thrill of something like terror went through him. He
had never thought what existence would be without Katy. She had
become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the
air he breathed--necessary but scarcely noticed. Now, without
warning, she was gone, vanished, as completely absent as if she had
never existed. Of course it would be only for a few days, or at most
a week or two, but it seemed to him as if the very hand of death had
pointed a finger at his secure and uneventful home.

John dragged the cold mutton from the ice-box, made coffee and sat
down to a lonely meal face to face with the strawberry marmalade's
shameless certificate of purity. Bright among withdrawn blessings
now appeared to him the ghosts of pot roasts and the salad with tan
polish dressing. His home was dismantled. A quinzied mother-in-law
had knocked his lares and penates sky-high. After his solitary meal
John sat at a front window.

He did not care to smoke. Outside the city roared to him to come
join in its dance of folly and pleasure. The night was his. He might
go forth unquestioned and thrum the strings of jollity as free as
any gay bachelor there. He might carouse and wander and have his
fling until dawn if he liked; and there would be no wrathful Katy
waiting for him, bearing the chalice that held the dregs of his joy.
He might play pool at McCloskey's with his roistering friends until
Aurora dimmed the electric bulbs if he chose. The hymeneal strings