early in March. And you?"
"Oh, I shall be home much sooner. Goodbye, and don't let your good luck spoil you."
"No fear! Wait until you know Phyllis. She would keep any fellow all right once he got his chance, as I have done. Goodbye, and--and--God bless you!"
During the next three days Bruce devoted himself sedulously to the search for Corbett. He inquired in every possible and impossible place, but the man had utterly vanished.
Nor did he come to claim his letter at the Hotel du Cercle. It remained stuck on the baize-covered board until it was covered with dust, and the clerk of the bureau had grown weary of watching people who scrutinized the receptacle for their correspondence.
Others came and asked for Corbett--sharp-featured men with imperials and long mustaches--the interest taken in the man was great, but unrequited. He never appeared.
At last the season ended, the hotel was closed, and the mysterious letter was shot into the dustbin."That is so." The barrister smoked in silence for a few minutes, until Sir Charles broke out rather querulously: "I suppose I did wrong in letting Harding take her traps?" "No," said Bruce. "It is I who am to blame. There is something underhanded about this young woman's conduct. The story about the sudden wealth is all bunkum, in one sense. That she did receive a bequest or gift of a considerable sum cannot be doubted. That she at once decided to go on the stage is obvious. But what is the usual course for a servant to pursue in such cases? Would she not have sought first to glorify herself in the sight of her fellow-servants, and even of her employers? Would there not have been the display of a splendid departure--in a hansom--with voluble directions to the driver, for the benefit of the footman? As it was, Jane Harding acted suddenly, precipitately, under the stress of some powerful emotion. I cannot help believing that her departure from this house had some connection, however remote, with Lady Dyke's disappearance." "Good heavens, Claude, you never told me this before." "True, but when we last met I had not the pleasure of Miss Marie le Marchant's acquaintance. I wish to goodness I had rummaged her boxes before she carried them off." "And I sincerely echo your wish," said Sir Charles testily. "It always seems, somehow, that I am to blame." "You must not take that view. I really wonder, Dyke, that you have not closed up your town house and gone off to Scotland for the fag-end of the shooting season. You won't hunt, I know, but a quiet life on the moors would bring you right away from associations which must have bitter memories for you." "I would have done so, but I cannot tear myself away while there is the slightest chance of the mystery attending my wife's fate being unravelled. I feel that I must remain 

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