him
too harshly." He added, after a moment, "I think you must know, Madame
de Lera, that Mrs. Pargeter's husband has always been lacking in
imagination."

Her only answer was a shrug of her shoulders.

VI.

Once a year the newspapers of each great capital publish, among other
statistics, a record of the disappearances which have occurred in their
midst during the preceding twelve months. These disappearances are not
counted by tens or by hundreds, but by thousands; and what is true of
every great city is in a very special sense true of Paris, the human
Cloaca Maxima of the world. There, the sudden vanishing, the
obliteration as it were, of a human being--especially of a
foreigner--arouses comparatively little surprise or interest among those
whose weary duty it is to try and find what has become of the lost one.

To Madame de Lera,--even to Tom Pargeter,--the beginning of what was to
be so singular and perplexing a quest had about it something
awe-inspiring and absorbing. So it was that during the few minutes which
elapsed between their leaving the Avenue du Bois de Bologne and their
reaching the ancient building where the Paris Police still has its
headquarters, not a word was spoken by either of the two ill-assorted
companions who sat together in the rear of the car, for Vanderlyn, the
only one of the three who knew where the Prefecture of Police is
situated, had been placed next to the chauffeur in order that he might
direct him as to the way thither.

By such men as Tom Pargeter and their like, the possibility of material
misfortune attacking themselves and those who form what may be called
their appanage, is never envisaged; and therefore, when such misfortune
comes to them, as it does sooner or later to all human beings, the grim
guest's presence is never accepted without an amazed sense of struggle
and revolt.

The news of the accident to his little son had angered Pargeter, and
made him feel ill-used, but that it should have been followed by this
mystery concerning his wife's whereabouts seemed to add insult to
injury. So it was an ill-tempered, rather than an anxious man who joined
Vanderlyn on the worn steps of the huge frowning building wherein is
housed that which remains the most permanent and the most awe-inspiring
of Parisian institutions.

As they passed through the great portals Tom Pargeter smiled, for the
first time; "We shall soon have news of her, Grid," he murmured,
confidently.