attled against the saucer. I knew what was
coming, and it came.

The old colonel read:

_"A telegram from Blackwater announces the mysterious disappearance of
the young wife of Lord Raa, which appears to have taken place late on
Thursday night or in the early hours of Friday morning.

"It will be remembered that the missing lady was married a little more
than a year ago, and her disappearance is the more unaccountable from
the fact that during the past month she has been actively occupied in
preparing for a fete in honour of her return home after a long and happy
honeymoon.

"The pavilion in which the fete was to have been held had been erected
on a headland between Castle Raa and a precipitous declivity to the sea,
and the only reasonable conjecture is that the unhappy lady, going out
on Thursday night to superintend the final preparations, lost her way in
the darkness and fell over the cliffs.

"The fact that the hostess was missing was not generally known in Ellan
until the guests had begun to arrive for the reception on Friday
evening, when the large assembly broke up in great confusion.

"Naturally much sympathy is felt for the grief-stricken husband."_

* * * * *

After the colonel had finished reading I had an almost irresistible
impulse to scream, feeling sure that the moment my house-mates looked
into my face they must see that I was the person indicated.

They did not look, and after a chorus of exclamations ("Most
mysterious!" "What can have become of her?" "On the eve of her fete
too!") they began to discuss disappearances in general, each
illustrating his point by reference to the subject of his own study.

"Perfectly extraordinary how people disappear nowadays," said one.

"Extraordinary, sir?" said the old colonel, looking over his spectacles,
"why should it be extraordinary that one person should disappear when
whole nations--the ten tribes for example. . . ."

"But that's a different thing altogether," said the old clergyman. "Now
if you had quoted Biblical examples--Elisha or perhaps Jonah. . . ."

After the discussion had gone on for several minutes in this way I rose
from the table on my trembling limbs and slipped out of the room.

It would take long to tell of the feverish days that followed--how
newspaper correspondents were sent from London to Ellan to inquire into
the circumstances of my disappearance; how the theory of accident gave
place to the th