Yes, there was the cottage, but why on earth were the shutters up. With a strange misgiving he walked up to the door and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and again--still no answer. Then he stepped back and looked up at the chimney. There was no smoky trail rising through the trees. He listened--there was no sound. His heart sank and sank till he felt as if it had entered his boots. With a kind of desperate hope he knelt on the window-sill and looked through a hole in the shutter into the room. It was bare of furniture--empty, desolate. He got down again and looked about him like one who, having buried a treasure, goes to the spot and finds that it has gone. Gone--that was the word--and no sign! It was incredible. Three days--only three days. What had happened? Was--was anyone dead? And at this thought his face grew as pale as the tan would allow it. No; that was absurd. People--she--could not have died and been buried in three days! Then, where was she? Was it possible that the old man had actually left the wood--thrown up his livelihood--because of his (Jack's) visit to the cottage? A great deal more disturbed and upset than he had been over the squire's will, he paced up and down. He sat down on the seat outside the window--the seat where he had drunk his cider and eaten his cake--the seat where Mrs. Davenant sat so patiently--and he lit his pipe and smoked in utter bewilderment. Disappointment is but a lukewarm word by which to describe his feelings. He felt that he had looked forward to seeing Una as a sort of set-off against the terrible blow which the squire's will had dealt him, and now she was gone! I am afraid to say how many hours he sat smoking and musing, in the vain hope that she, or Gideon Rolfe, or someone would come to tell him something about it; but at last he realized that she had indeed flown; that the nest which had contained the beautiful bird was empty and void; and with a heart that felt like lead, he set out for Wermesley. By chance, more than calculation, he caught the up-train, and was whirled into London. Weary, exhausted rather, he signaled a hansom, and was driven to Spider Court. Spider Court is not an easy place to find. It is in the heart of the Temple, and consists of about ten houses, every one of which, like a Chinese puzzle, contains a number of houses within itself. Barristers--generally briefless--inhabit Spider Court; but it is the refuge of the hard-working literary man, and of the members of that strange class which is always waiting for "something to turn up." Jack ascended the stairs of No. 5, passed various doors bearing the names of the occupants on the other side of them, and opened a door which bore the legend: "Leonard Dagle. "John Newcombe." painted in small black letters on its cross-panel. It was not a large room, and it was plainly furnished; but it looked comfortable. Its contents looked rather incongruous.