I hope that question doesn't mean that you are professionally interested in his past?" she laughed carelessly.

"I am quite prepared to stand up for Absalom; he was the soul of integrity."

Hartley put down his cup on the table.

"The boy has disappeared," he said, talking with interest, for the subject filled his mind. "But when, and how? I saw him quite lately."

Hartley's round, China-blue eyes fixed upon her. "Can you tell me when you saw him?"

"One night--evening, I should say--I was out riding and I passed him going towards the wharf, not towards the wharf exactly, but to the houses that lie out by the end of the tram lines."

"What evening? I wish you could remember for me."

"It was the night of my own dinner-party."

"Then that was July the twenty-ninth?"

Mrs. Wilder looked at him, and bit her lip.

"Was it the twenty-ninth?" Hartley repeated the question.

"Probably it was, if you say so. I told you just now that I had Burma head. But where has Absalom gone to?"

Hartley took up his cup again and stirred the spoon round and round.

"Forgive me for pelting you with questions, but did you see Mr. Heath that evening?"

"Now, what _are_ you trying to get out of me, Mr. Hartley? Did Mr. Heath tell you that he had seen me?"

Hartley stared at his feet.

"Heath has got Burma head, too, and won't tell me anything. It might help his memory if you were able to say whether you had seen him or not that evening."

Mrs. Wilder's fine eyes glittered into a smile that was not exactly mirthful or pleasant.

"I don't see that I can possibly say one way or another. I often do . . . I often do see him going about the native quarter when I ride through, but I do not write it down in my book, so it is quite impossible for me to say."

"Anyhow, 

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