was he going? He had not the most remote idea as to where Isabel
was staying, and maddened by his position, he forced himself to go up to
the drawing-room and ask his sister for the address.

"I must be half mad," he muttered.

He threw open the drawing-room door and, strode in, determined to insist
upon the address being given him if Laura should refuse.

But the room was empty, and, staggered by this fresh surprise and with
ominous thoughts beginning to arise, he went out on to the landing to
call his sister by name. Then he called aloud to his aunt, with the
result that an answer to his shouts came from below in the servant's
voice--

"Beg pardon, sir; Miss Laura and Mrs Crane went out more than an hour
ago."

"What! Where did they go?"

"I don't know, sir. I had to whistle for a cab, and they each took a
travelling bag."

Chester went down to his consulting-room, checkmated, and feeling
completely stunned at his position.

What was he to do? He might set a detective to try and find the cabman
who took them away, but it would be days before he could have the man
traced.

Then came a bright idea.

The hotel where Isabel had been staying--the manager there would know
where she and her father and mother went on leaving.

He took a cab there, but the manager did not know. He thought the old
people went abroad, and the young lady went into private apartments.

"But their letters--where were their letters to be addressed?"

"To their country house, sir."

Chester hurried away again. Perhaps something might be made of that,
and he went to the first post-office and telegraphed down to the person
in charge of the house, paying for a reply to be sent to Raybeck Square,
to which place he returned, and paced his room for two hours before he
obtained the brief reply:--

"Address not known. They have not written yet.--Susan."

"Was any poor wretch ever so tortured by fate?" he muttered; and he
threw himself into a chair to try and think out some way of finding out
the address to which he had sent Marion.

At last, faint, and with his brain in a whirl, he sought for temporary
release from his sufferings in one of the bottles of drugs in his
consulting-room.

But the ordinary dose seemed to have no effect, and he repeated it at
intervals twice before he sank into a state of lethargy from which he
did not awaken till morning, to find himself lying back in a corner of
the couch, with the three servants