nce there had been no word of
him, no trace of his movements. Even the usual misleading reports that
raise expectancy in tortured bosoms had been few and fleeting. No one
but the bewildered kitchen-maid had seen him leave the house, and no one
else had seen "the gentleman" who accompanied him. All inquiries in the
neighborhood failed to elicit the memory of a stranger's presence that
day in the neighborhood of Lyng. And no one had met Edward Boyne, either
alone or in company, in any of the neighboring villages, or on the road
across the downs, or at either of the local railway-stations. The sunny
English noon had swallowed him as completely as if he had gone out into
Cimmerian night.

Mary, while every external means of investigation was working at its
highest pressure, had ransacked her husband's papers for any trace of
antecedent complications, of entanglements or obligations unknown to
her, that might throw a faint ray into the darkness. But if any such
had existed in the background of Boyne's life, they had disappeared as
completely as the slip of paper on which the visitor had written his
name. There remained no possible thread of guidance except--if it were
indeed an exception--the letter which Boyne had apparently been in the
act of writing when he received his mysterious summons. That letter,
read and reread by his wife, and submitted by her to the police, yielded
little enough for conjecture to feed on.

"I have just heard of Elwell's death, and while I suppose there is now
no farther risk of trouble, it might be safer--" That was all. The "risk
of trouble" was easily explained by the newspaper clipping which had
apprised Mary of the suit brought against her husband by one of his
associates in the Blue Star enterprise. The only new information
conveyed in the letter was the fact of its showing Boyne, when he wrote
it, to be still apprehensive of the results of the suit, though he
had assured his wife that it had been withdrawn, and though the letter
itself declared that the plaintiff was dead. It took several weeks
of exhaustive cabling to fix the identity of the "Parvis" to whom the
fragmentary communication was addressed, but even after these inquiries
had shown him to be a Waukesha lawyer, no new facts concerning the
Elwell suit were elicited. He appeared to have had no direct concern
in it, but to have been conversant with the facts merely as an
acquaintance, and possible intermediary; and he declared hims