The other was that of a very beautiful girl still under twenty, a face that reflected culture and vivacity, and the winsome features and expression of which, with the finely poised head and shapely shoulders, might have been the ideal of a Raphael or Correggio. Nick at once inferred rightly that this was the girl who apparently had been spirited away so boldly, as well as mysteriously, in so far as a motive had yet appeared. The young Englishman looked disappointed when Nick’s prediction was verified, his wife not being found there, and he at once waved the detective to a chair, saying with nervous haste and in his own peculiar fashion, which was much less frivolous than appears: “You were jolly well right, Mr. Carter, and I’m confoundedly upset. What the devil can a poor chap do? I’m going to tell you all about it. How the dickens did you know, old top, that my name isn’t Archie Waldron?” “Because you hesitated when I questioned you,” said Nick. “No man would shrink from stating his true name under such circumstances.” “Dash it! that was blasted clever, don’t you know? I was a fall guy not to think of that. But you hit the bally nail on the nob. My name is not Waldron, ’pon my honor. I’m the fifth son of the Earl of Eggleston, and an only son by his second wife, the late Countess of Waldmere, from whom I got my title and a bally bit of a fortune. She died when I was born, and I became Lord Waldmere.” “I suspected something of the kind,” Nick replied. “I find that I sized you up correctly.” “Did you really, now? Well, that’s deuced kind and clever, ’pon my word. What’s to be done, my dear fellow? We can’t stay here, old top, while Mollie----” “Now, Lord Waldmere, you’re talking,” Nick interrupted. “We must get down to rock-bottom as quickly as possible. You must leave me to determine what shall be done. I know more about New York and its deviltry than you could possibly imagine.” “That’s jolly well right, sir, of course.” “All I require of you, Waldmere, is to tell me a straight story, as briefly as possible,” Nick added familiarly. “What are you doing over here? Who was your American wife? Why are you living under an assumed name in a New York boarding house? Tell me all about it with as few words as possible.” Nick then obtained a straight story, in so far as the essential facts were concerned, but not without comments and digressions, from which Lord Waldmere appeared utterly unable to refrain, and which divested his story of anything like desirable brevity. Briefly stated, however, it appeared that his young lordship, who in most respects was a worthy representative of one of the wealthy and most conservative families of the English aristocracy, had fallen deeply in love with a beautiful American chorus girl about three months before, who then was one of an American opera company singing in London.