lcomed this final grudging half-acquiescence and felt that
it was well worth the price. "Now it will be easy to persuade him to
let us be married soon, when Felix comes back," she thought.

But the morning's news had not an atom more of information concerning
the architect's whereabouts than she had known the day before.
Hugh Gordon also had disappeared. Before the publication of the
investigating committee's report several newspaper men had seen him
and talked with him about it, but the next day they could not find him
anywhere, nor any one who had the least idea whither he had gone. One
member of the committee knew Brand very well and, in pursuit of Miss
Annister's idea that Gordon and the missing architect might be
relatives, the reporters had questioned him about Gordon's
disappearance.

There was some resemblance, he said, although he had not thought about
it at the time. Gordon was a larger man, he thought, and a younger,
and his manner was very different. Brand was always affable, very
polite, and inclined to be somewhat ceremonious; but Gordon was
brusque, rather aggressive, and seemed to be much in earnest. His
evident sincerity and honesty had impressed the committee very much.
But, on the whole, he concluded, there was some resemblance between
the two men in feature and coloring; enough, perhaps, to indicate that
they might be relatives.

Mildred was keenly disappointed to find so little of consequence
or of promise in the news of the morning, but the committeeman's
description of Brand's accuser confirmed her in her conviction.

"If they can only find him," she thought, "it will solve the whole
mystery and set Felix right before the public again."

She telephoned to the paper which had seemed most active in the hunt
for Gordon, begged that they would continue the search, and made the
city editor promise to call her up if they should find out anything
new about him or come upon any trace of his movements. For the rest of
the day she refused to leave the house and sat all the time in
high-strung expectation near the telephone, that she might not lose a
moment in responding to its ring. But no call came until late in the
evening, when the city editor rang her up to say that his men had
discovered absolutely nothing new, and that nobody had any more idea
what had become of either Brand or Gordon than they had had the day
before.

CHAPTER VII

FELIX BRAND READS A LETTER

When Henrietta Marne en