Mark Felton and George Dallas left Homburg for Paris on the following day. They had separated for the night earlier than usual, and George had employed himself for some hours in writing a long and confidential letter to his friend Cunningham. It was addressed to that gentleman at the _Mercury_ office, and it contained full details of every particular which he had been able to learn connected with his missing cousin. The purpose of the letter was an urgent request that Cunningham would at once communicate with the police on this matter, and it concluded with these words: "I cannot conquer my apprehensions, and I will not yet communicate them to my uncle. But, mark this, I am convinced we shall learn nothing good at Paris; and we have done very wrong in not putting the police to work long ago. Don't laugh at me, and call me a novelist in action. I never felt so sure of anything I had not seen as I am of Arthur Felton's having come to serious grief." CHAPTER XXXI. PAUL WARD. The autumn tints were rich and beautiful upon the Kent woods, and nowhere more rich or more beautiful than in Sir Thomas Boldero's domain. The soft grass beneath the noble beeches was strewn with the russet leaves a little earlier than usual that year, and somewhat more plentifully, for the storm had shaken them down, and had even rent away a branch here and there from some of the less sturdy trees. And then the forester made his inspection, and the fallen branches were removed, and duly cut and housed for winter fire-wood, and it chanced that the hitherto forgotten log on which George Dallas had sat one spring morning was carried away with them. Clare Carruthers missed it from its accustomed place as she rode down the glade which she still loved, though it had a painful association for her now. Every day her eyes had rested on the rugged log, and every day she had turned them away with a sigh. To-day it was there no longer, and its absence was a relief. She reined Sir Lancelot up for a moment, and looked at the vacant space. The earth lay bare and brown where the log had been; there was no grass there. "It won't be hidden until the spring," she thought, impatiently. "I wish--I wish I could forget the place in which I saw him first! I wish I could forget that I ever had seen him!" Then she turned her head away with an effort and a sigh, and rode on. Clare was going over from the Sycamores to Poynings. She had occasion to see the housekeeper, started early, and, as usual, unattended, save by Cæsar, who bounded along now by the side of Sir Lancelot, anon a considerable way in advance, doing the distance twice over, after the fashion of dogs, and evidently compassionating the leisurely pace to which his equine friend and comrade was condemned.