e, all contented and all happy. We had a
good deal to talk of during the evening, and sat up late. Sundry small
events had happened in Guernsey during my six-days' absence, and these
were discussed with that charming minuteness with which women canvass
family matters. It was midnight before I found myself alone in my own
room.

I had half forgotten the crumpled paper in my waistcoat-pocket, but now
I smoothed it out before me and pondered over every word. No, there
could not be a doubt that it referred to Miss Ollivier. "Bright-brown
hair, gray eyes, and delicate features." That exactly corresponded with
her appearance. "Blue-silk dress, and seal-skin jacket and hat." It was
precisely the dress which Tardif had described. "Fifty pounds reward."
That was a large sum to offer, and the inference was that her friends
were persons of good means, and anxious for her recovery.

Why should she have strayed from home? That was the question. What
possible reason could there have been, strong enough to impel a young
and delicately-nurtured girl to run all the risks and dangers of a
flight alone and unprotected? Her friends evidently believed that she
had not been run away with; there was not the ordinary element of an
elopement in this case.

But Miss Ollivier had assured me she had no friends. What did she mean
by the word? Here were persons evidently anxious to discover her place
of concealment. Were they friends? or could they by any chance be
enemies? This is not an age when enmity is very rampant. For my own
part, I had not an enemy in the world. Why should this pretty,
habitually-obedient, self-controlled girl have any? Most probably it was
one of those instances of bitter misunderstanding which sometimes arise
in families, and which had driven her to the desperate step of seeking
peace and quietness by flight.

Then what ought I to do with this advertisement, thrust, as it would
seem, purposely under my notice? If I had not wrapped up the parcel
myself at Barbet's, I should have missed seeing it; or if Barbet had
picked up any other piece of paper, it would not have come under my eye.
A curious concatenation of very trivial circumstances had ended in
putting into my hands a clew by which I could unravel all the mystery
about my Sark patient. What was I to do with the clew?

I might communicate at once with Messrs. Scott and Brown, giving them
the information they had advertised for six months before, and receive a
rep