"I have almost everything that has appeared about it in the papers. It will be cruel reading for you, Ringrose; but you may take it better so than from anybody's lips. The accounts in the local press—the creditors' meetings and so forth—are, however, rather long. Hadn't you better wait until we're on our way back to town?" 

 "Wait? No, show me something now! I apologise for what I said; I made use of an unpardonable word; but—I don't believe it yet!" 

 "Here, then," said Lowndes, "if you insist. Here's a single short paragraph from the P.M.G. It would appear about the last day in March." 

 "The day I sailed!" groaned Harry. He took the cutting and read as follows:— 

 THE MISSING IRONMASTER. 

 The Press Association states that nothing further has been ascertained with regard to the whereabouts of Mr. Henry J. Ringrose, the Westmoreland ironmaster, who was last seen on Easter Eve. He has been traced, however, as already reported in these columns, to the Café; Suisse in Dieppe, though no further. The people at the café; persist in stating that their visitor only remained a few hours, so that he would appear to have walked thence into thin air. The police, as usual, are extremely reticent; but inquiry at Scotland Yard has elicited the fact that considerable doubt exists as to whether the missing man's chief creditors will, or can, owing to the character of their claim, take further action in the matter. 

 "Who are the chief creditors?" asked Harry, returning the cutting with an ashy face. 

 "Four business friends of your father's, from whom I raised the money in his name." 

 "Here in the neighbourhood?" 

 "No, in London; they advanced two thousand five hundred each." 

 "It was no good, you say?" 

 "No; the bank was not satisfied." 

 "So my father ran away with their money and left the works to go to blazes—and my mother to starve?" 

 Lowndes shrugged his shoulders. 

 "I apologise again for insulting you, Mr. Lowndes," said the boy, holding out his hand. "You have been a good friend to my poor father, I can see, and I know that you firmly believe what you say. But I never will! No; not if all his friends, and every newspaper in the kingdom, told me it was true!" 

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