ns may be really one
disappearance only, that the 'man of God' and the 'woman of the theatre'
may have acted in collusion, from the same impulse and with the same
expectation, and that the rich and beneficent person who (according to
the latest report) has come to the rescue of the one, and is an active
agent in looking for the other, is in reality the foolish though
well-meaning victim of both?--R. U."

For three hours Drake had searched for Lord Robert with flame in his eyes
and fury in his looks. Going first to Belgrave Square, he had found the
blinds down and the house shut up. Mrs. Macrae was dead. She had died at
a lodging in the country, alone and unattended. Her wealth had not been
able to buy the devotion of one faithful servant at the end. She had left
nothing to her daughter except a remonstrance against her behaviour, but
she had made Lord Robert her chief heir and sole executor.

That amiable mourner had returned to London with all possible despatch as
soon as the breath was out of his mother-in-law's body and arrangements
were made for its transit. He was now engaged in relieving the tension of
so much unusual emotion by a round of his nightly pleasures. Drake had
come up with him at last.

The Corinthian Club was unusually gay that night, "Hello there!" came
from every side. The music in the ballroom was louder than ever, and,
judging by the numbers of the dancers, the attraction of "Tra-la-la" was
even greater than before. There was the note of yet more reckless license
everywhere, as if that little world whose life was pleasure had been
under the cloud of a temporary terror and was determined to make up for
it by the wildest folly. The men chaffed and laughed and shouted comic
songs and kicked their legs about; the women drank and giggled.

Lord Robert was in the supper-room with three guests--the "three graces."
The women were in full evening dress. Betty was wearing the ring she had
taken from Polly "just to remember her by, pore thing," and the others
were blazing in similar brilliants. The wretched man himself was half
drunk. He had been talking of Father Storm and of his own wife in a
jaunty tone, behind which there was an intensity of hatred.

"But this panic of his, don't you know, was the funniest thing ever heard
of. Going home that night I counted seventeen people on their knees in
the streets--'pon my soul I did! Eleven old women of eighty, two or three
of seventy, and one or two that mig