rd. "I _must_ be busy--busy every minute of the
day," she cried, hiding her anguish with that smile of hers which I'd
learned to love.

What Robert had said to her in his promised letter, the only one he
wrote, she didn't tell. I knew no more than that it had been written and
received. Probably it wasn't an ideal letter for a girl to wear over her
heart, hidden under her dress. Robert would have felt it unfair to write
that kind of letter. All the same I'm sure that Joyce _did_ wear it
there!

As for me, I was absolutely _sick_ about everything. I felt as if my two
dearest friends had been put in prison on a false charge, and as
though--if I hadn't cotton wool for a brain--I ought to be able to get
them out.

"There's a clue to the labyrinth if I could see it," I told myself so
often that I was tired of the thought. And the most irritating part was
that now and then I seemed to catch a half glimpse of the clue dangling
back and forth like a thread of spider's web close to my eyes. But
invariably it was gone before I'd _really_ caught sight of it. And all
the good that _concentrating_ did was to bump my intelligence against
the pale image of Opal Fawcett.

I didn't understand how Opal, even with the best--or worst--will in the
world, could have stage-managed this drama, though I should have liked
to think she had done it.

Miss Reardon frankly admitted having heard of Opal (who hadn't heard of
her), among those interested in spiritism, during the last few years;
but as the American woman had never before been in England, and Opal had
never crossed to America, the Boston medium hardly needed to say that
she'd never met Miss Fawcett. As for correspondence, if there _were_ a
secret between the pair, of course they'd both deny it. And so, though I
longed to fling a challenge to Opal, I saw that it would be stupid to
put the two women, if guilty, on their guard. Besides, how _could_ they,
through any correspondence, have contrived the things that had happened?

Suddenly, through the darkness of my doubts, shot a lightning flash: the
thought of Jim Courtenaye.

Superficially judging, Sir James Courtenaye, wild man of the West, but
lately transplanted, appeared the last person to assist in working out a
psychic problem. All the same a great longing to prop myself against him
(figuratively!) overwhelmed me; and for fear the impulse might pass, I
wired at once:

Please come if you can. Wish to consult you.