d, all efforts to get in
touch with her proved to be unavailing; and when her parents died, and
her brother renewed his search, he was met with a blank wall. You see,"
Frank went on, a little naively, "it is quite impossible to discover
anybody when their name is not even known to one."

"I see," smiled the girl; "and have you succeeded where all these people
have failed?"

"I have hardly progressed so far as that," he laughed. "What I have
discovered is this: that the man, who seventy years ago left the United
States with the sister of old Tollington, lived for some years in Great
Bradley."

"Great Bradley!" she said, in surprise; "why, isn't that where Lady
Constance Dex lives?"

He nodded.

"Everybody seems to live there," he said, ruefully; "even our friend,"
he hesitated.

"Our friend?" she repeated, inquiringly.

"Your friend Poltavo is there now," he said, "permanently established as
the guest of Dr. Fall. You have heard of the Secret House?--but
everybody in England has heard of it."

"I am afraid that everybody does not include me," she smiled, "but go on
with your story; how did you find that he lived in Great Bradley?"

"Well, it was rather a case of luck," he explained. "You see, I lived
some years in Great Bradley myself; that is where I first met your
uncle. I was a little boy at the time. But it wasn't my acquaintance
with Great Bradley which helped me. Did you see in the paper the other
day the fact that, in pulling down an old post office building, a number
of letters were discovered which had evidently slipped through the floor
of the old letter-box, and had not been delivered?"

"I read something about it," she smiled; "forty or fifty years old, were
they not?"

He nodded.

"One of these," he said, quietly, "was addressed to Tollington, and was
signed by his sister. I saw it this morning at the General Post Office.
I happened to spot the paragraph, which was sent in to my paper, to the
effect that these letters had been undelivered for forty or fifty years,
and fortunately our correspondent at Great Bradley had secured a list of
the addresses. I saw that one of these was to George Tollington of
Chicago, and on the off chance I went down to Great Bradley. Thanks to
the courtesy of the Postmaster-General I was able to copy the letter. It
was a short one."

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper.

"DEAR GEORGE," he read, "this is just to tell you that we are quite wel