"Brandy-and-soda for me," ordered de Cartienne. "Cis is drinking whisky, I see, so he'll have another one, and we'll have a large bottle of Apollinaris between us. Morton, what'll you have?" I decided upon claret and hot water, never having tasted spirits. De Cartienne made a wry face, but ordered it without remark. "I say, Morton, I don't know what you'll think of us shacking about in a public-house like this, and bringing you here, your first night, too!" exclaimed Silchester, dragging his chair up to mine. "Bad form, isn't it? But it is so dull in the evenings and Milly's no end of a nice girl. No one could help liking her. Besides, she's in dreadful trouble just now," he continued, dropping his voice. "Her father has disappeared suddenly. Awfully mysterious affair and no mistake. We can't make head or tail of it." "It is uncommonly queer," admitted de Cartienne, who was lounging against the wall beside us. "I should have said that he'd gone off on the spree somewhere, but he couldn't have kept it up so long as this." "Besides, he'd only a few pounds with him," Cecil remarked. "Seems almost as though he'd come to grief in some way," I said. "I daren't tell Milly, but I don't know what else to think," Cecil acknowledged. A wild idea flashed for a moment into my mind, only to die away again almost as rapidly. It was too utterly improbable. Nevertheless, I asked Cecil a question with some curiosity: "What sort of looking man was he?" Cecil and de Cartienne both began to describe him at once, and, as de Cartienne modified or contradicted everything Cecil said, I was soon in a state of complete bewilderment as to the personality of the missing man. It seemed that he was short, and of medium height; that he was fair, and inclined to be dark, stout and thin, pale and ruddy. Milly put in a word or two now and then; and, what with de Cartienne dissenting from everything she said, and Cecil, a little perplexed, siding first with one and then with the other, the description naturally failed to carry to my mind the slightest impression of Mr. Hart's appearance. At last, rather impatiently, I stopped them. "I'm afraid I am guilty of a somewhat unreasonable curiosity," I said, "for I haven't any real reason for asking; but haven't you a photograph of your father, Miss Hart? I can't follow the description at all." I happened to be looking towards de Cartienne while I made my request, and suddenly, from no apparent cause, I saw him start, and a strange look came into his face. At first I thought he must be ill; but, seeing my eyes fixed upon him, he seemed to recover himself instantly, though he was still deadly pale. "Why, what the mischief are you staring at, Morton?" asked Cecil. "Oh, nothing!" I answered. "I thought that de Cartienne was ill, that's all." Cecil glanced at him curiously. "By George! he does look rather white about the gills, doesn't he? Say, old chap, are you ill?" de Cartienne shook his head.