e made his way to the smoking room, asked almost indifferently for a
brandy and soda, and drained it to the last drop. Then he walked up the
deck to where Elizabeth was seated, and dropped into a chair by her side.

"So I am missing," he remarked, almost in his ordinary tone. "I really
had no idea that I was a person of such importance. Fancy reading of my
own disappearance within a few days of its taking place, in the middle of
the Atlantic!"

"There was probably some one there who gave information," she suggested.

"There was the young lady whom I went to visit," he assented. "She
probably watched me cross the road and turn in at that gate and take the
path by the canal side. Yes, she may even have gone to the station to see
whether I took the only other train back to London, and found that I did
not. She knew, too, that I could only have had a few shillings in my
pocket, and that my living depended upon being in London for my school
the next morning. Yes, the whole thing was reasonable."

"And they are going to drag the canal," Elizabeth said thoughtfully.

"A difficult business," he assured her. "It is one of the most ghastly,
ill-constructed, filthiest strips of water you ever looked upon. It has
been the garbage depository of the villages through which it makes its
beastly way, for generations. I don't envy the men who have to handle the
drags."

"You do not believe, then, that they will find anything--interesting?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"That type of man," he continued, "must have a morbid mind. There will be
dead animals without a doubt, worn-out boots, filthy and decomposed
articles of clothing--"

"Don't!" she interrupted. "You know what I mean. Do leave off painting
your ghastly pictures. You know quite well what I mean. Philip Romilly is
here by my side. What can they hope to find there in his place?"

His evil moments for that afternoon were over. He answered her almost
carelessly.

"Not what they are looking for. Have you brought the paper and pencil you
spoke of? I have an idea--I am getting fresh ideas every moment now
that I picture you as my heroine. It is queer, isn't it, how naturally
you fall into the role?"

She drew a little nearer to him. He was conscious of a mysterious and
unfamiliar perfume, perhaps from the violets half hidden in her furs, or
was it something in her hair? It reminded him a little of the world the
keys into which he had gripped--the world of joyousness, of