"Yes, it is! It's from HER!"

And I held the telegram out, blindly, towards the young American.

The telegram which my mistress had sent ran simply and superbly thus:

"Why ever don't you bring my clothes?
"MISS MILLION."

There was no address.

The wire had been handed in at half-past seven o'clock that evening at
Lewes. It left me silent for a moment with bewilderment and dismay.
After waiting so long for a message! To receive one that told me
nothing!

"What is the meaning of this here?" said Miss Million's cousin,
repeating, in the accent that makes all our English words sound
something new and strange. "'Why ever don't you bring my clothes?' Well!
I guess that sounds as if nothing very terrible had happened to her. Her
clothes! A woman's first thought, of course. Where does she want you to
'bring' them to, Miss Smith?"

"How on earth should I know?" I cried, in desperation. "When I still
don't know where she is, or what she is doing!"

"But this place, Lewes. Surely that's some guide to you?"

"Not the slightest," I said. "We don't know anybody at Lewes! At least,
I don't know that she knew anybody there! I don't know who on earth can
have taken her there!" This with another nervous thought of young Lord
Fourcastles. "I shall have to go at once--no, it's too late to-night.
To-morrow I shall go. But----

"She may not be there at all. She may have been motoring through when
she sent this absurd wire!"

"Maybe," said the American. "But it's a clue, for all that. Lewes! The
post-offices at Lewes will tell you something about her."

"Why, why didn't she tell me something about herself?" I stormed softly.
"Here she is taking it for granted that I know exactly what's happened
and where she's gone! Does she imagine that she explained that to me
last night before she went out? Does she think she gave me any orders?
Here she is actually asking 'why?' to me!" I concluded, stammering with
indignation. "She sounds quite furious because I haven't brought her
clothes to her----somewhere in Space!"

"What clothes was she wearing, may I ask?" demanded the American cousin,
in his simple, boyishly interested manner.

And when I told him of the bright, cherry-coloured evening gown, and the
creamy restaurant coat, and the little cerise satin shoes with jewelled
heels that Million had on, he put back his head and laughed gently.

"Poor little girl! Poor little Cousin Nellie! I gu