"What?"

"She sailed for home, to-day, on the _Kaiserina_."

"Hubert!"

"Theodora?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that and no more."

"How did you hear?"

"A cable, to-day."

"But Mrs. Farrington said she was going to Italy."

"Perhaps she is."

"Not if she is coming home."

"She isn't."

Theodora looked mystified, as much at the ambiguity of the pronouns as at
the fact itself.

"Babe is coming home alone," Hubert added.

"Is she ill?"