intent on her errand.

"I hardly know how to begin," she said, "but suppose"—slowly—"suppose that a man, a well-known man, should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming home to dinner, and he—he—"

She stopped as if her voice had failed her.

"And he does not come?" I prompted.

She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in her bag.

"How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like that, hardly more than a girl, and lovely!

"Ten days."

"I should think it ought to be looked into," I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is always a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a man deserting his wife that I am not indignant, the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. "But you will have to tell me more than that. Did this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he—er—drink?"

"Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money, but I—believe he was rather lucky." She colored uncomfortably.

"Married, I suppose?" I asked casually.

"He had been. His wife died when I—" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars.

"It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved.

But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle.

"You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?"

"Absolutely."

"You have had no word from him?"

"None."

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