ively that this house was not her
home. More likely, it was some indefinable, yet convincing expression
of her manner that gave him that impression. While he hazarded, with
fast beating heart, what privilege of acquaintance with her Alan Conrad
might have, she moved a little nearer to him. She was slightly pale,
he noticed now, and there were lines of strain and trouble about her
eyes.

"I am Constance Sherrill," she announced. Her tone implied quite
evidently that she expected him to have some knowledge of her, and she
seemed surprised to see that her name did not mean more to him.

"Mr. Corvet is not here this morning," she said.

He hesitated, but persisted: "I was to see him here to-day, Miss
Sherrill. He wrote me, and I telegraphed him I would be here to-day."

"I know," she answered. "We had your telegram. Mr. Corvet was not
here when it came, so my father opened it." Her voice broke oddly, and
he studied her in indecision, wondering who that father might be that
opened Mr. Corvet's telegrams.

"Mr. Corvet went away very suddenly," she explained. She seemed, he
thought, to be trying to make something plain to him which might be a
shock to him; yet herself to be uncertain what the nature of that shock
might be. Her look was scrutinizing, questioning, anxious, but not
unfriendly. "After he had written you and something else had
happened--I think--to alarm my father about him, father came here to
his house to look after him. He thought something might have ...
happened to Mr. Corvet here in his house. But Mr. Corvet was not here."

"You mean he has--disappeared?"

"Yes; he has disappeared."

Alan gazed at her dizzily. Benjamin Corvet--whoever he might be--had
disappeared; he had gone. Did any one else, then, know about Alan
Conrad?

"No one has seen Mr. Corvet," she said, "since the day he wrote to you.
We know that--that he became so disturbed after doing that--writing to
you--that we thought you must bring with you information of him."

"Information!"

"So we have been waiting for you to come here and tell us what you know
about him or--or your connection with him."

CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION OF A SHADOW

Alan, as he looked confusedly and blankly at her, made no attempt to
answer the question she had asked, or to explain. For the moment, as
he fought to realize what she had said and its meaning for himself, all
his thought was lost in mere dismay, in the denial and checking of