The little black marble clock on the mantelpiece chimed the half-hour after ten—time to repair to the theatre. Mr. Flittergilt’s piece ended at a quarter before eleven, and at a few minutes past the hour Justina appeared at the stage door, ready to be escorted home. Maurice and Mr. Elgood went together to the dark little side street in which the stage door of the Royal Albert was situated, dingy and repellent of aspect after the manner of stage doors. It was a starlight autumn night, and that walk back to Bloomsbury with Justina’s little hand resting on his own arm was very pleasant to Maurice Clissold. They chose the quietest streets, without reference to distance, and the walk lasted about a quarter of an hour longer than it need have done had they gratified Mr. Elgood’s predilection for certain short cuts, by Wych Street and Drury Lane. But throughout that homeward walk not one whispered word of Maurice’s betrayed the lover, and when he and Justina parted at the door of her lodgings, the girl thought wonderingly of that summer night in Eborsham, more than two years ago, when James Penwyn told her of his love in the shadow of the old minster. ‘Shall I ever have a second lover as generous and devoted?’ she mused. ‘That was only boy and girl love, I suppose, yet it seemed truer and brighter than anything that will ever come my way again.’ She had been thinking of Maurice not a little of late, and had decided that he did not care for her in the least. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX ‘THE DAYS HAVE VANISHED, TONE AND TINT.’ Maurice Clissold lost no time in setting about his search for Miss Barlow, the quondam schoolmistress of Seacomb. But the first result of his endeavours was a failure. The London Post Office Directory for the current year knew not Miss Barlow. Barlows there were in its pages, but they were trading Barlows; Barlows who baked, or Barlows who brewed; Barlows who dealt in upholstery; Barlows who purveyed butcher’s meat; or professional Barlows, who wrote Rev. before or M.R.C.S. after their names. A spinster of the musical profession was not to be found among the London Barlows. In the face of this disappointment Maurice paused to consider his next effort. Advertising in the _Times_ he looked upon as a last resource, and a means of inquiry which he hoped to dispense with. So many spurious Miss Barlows eager to hear of something to their advantage, would be conjured into being by any appeal published in the second column of the _Times_. There remained to him the detective medium, but Maurice cherished a prejudice against private inquiry offices, and would not for all the wealth of this realm have revealed Muriel’s story to a professional detective. He was resolved to succeed or fail in this business single-handed.