and rapidly ran through them with
ever-accumulating anxiety, told them what they had to expect.

The page containing the formula was gone!

Violet now saw her problem.

II

There was no doubt about the loss I have mentioned; all could see that
page 13 was not there. In vain a second handling of every sheet, the one
so numbered was not to be found. Page 14 met the eye on the top of
the pile, and page 12 finished it off at the bottom, but no page 13 in
between, or anywhere else.

Where had it vanished, and through whose agency had this misadventure
occurred? No one could say, or, at least, no one there made any attempt
to do so, though everybody started to look for it.

But where look? The adjoining small room offered no facilities for
hiding a cigar-end, much less a square of shining white paper. Bare
walls, a bare floor, and a single chair for furniture, comprised all
that was to be seen in this direction. Nor could the room in which they
then stood be thought to hold it, unless it was on the person of some
one of them. Could this be the explanation of the mystery? No man looked
his doubts; but Mr. Cornell, possibly divining the general feeling,
stepped up to Mr. Van Broecklyn and in a cool voice, but with the red
burning hotly on either cheek, said, so as to be heard by everyone
present:

"I demand to be searched--at once and thoroughly."

A moment's silence, then the common cry:

"We will all be searched."

"Is Mr. Spielhagen sure that the missing page was with the others when
he sat down in the adjoining room to read his thesis?" asked their
perturbed host.

"Very sure," came the emphatic reply. "Indeed, I was just going through
the formula itself when I fell asleep."

"You are ready to assert this?"

"I am ready to swear it."

Mr. Cornell repeated his request.

"I demand that you make a thorough search of my person. I must be
cleared, and instantly, of every suspicion," he gravely asserted, "or
how can I marry Miss Digby to-morrow."

After that there was no further hesitation. One and all subjected
themselves to the ordeal suggested; even Mr. Spielhagen. But this effort
was as futile as the rest. The lost page was not found.

What were they to think? What were they to do?

There seemed to be nothing left to do, and yet some further attempt must
be made towards the recovery of this important formula. Mr. Cornell's
marriage and Mr. Spielhagen's business success both depended upon its
being in