"I have told you all I know," she said, rising quickly, and answering the question I had not uttered. "I feel the need of rest. If I can help you in any way, command me." "Thank you," I answered, and opened the door for her. She paused on the threshold--glanced around--her eyes rested on Burr Curtiss's dreary face. In an instant, she was beside him, bending over him with infinite tenderness. "Dear boy," she said, so low I could scarcely hear her, and smoothed back his hair with a gesture almost motherly, "dear boy, don't worry so. I'm sure it will all come right." He looked up and smiled at her tremulously. With a quick impulsiveness, she stooped and kissed him, then went rapidly from the room, leaving me, at least, more puzzled than before at this sudden glimpse of unsuspected depths of tenderness. I closed the door after her and turned back to Curtiss. "Has Mrs. Lawrence favoured your suit for her daughter's hand?" I asked. "Favoured it?" he repeated. "Yes, from the very first." "Then, in your opinion, she couldn't have had anything to do with this disappearance--advised it, perhaps assisted in it?" "No," he said decidedly; "that's absurd." "And yet----" I began. "If you knew her," he interrupted, "you would see its absurdity. She has always been most kind to me. You saw----" "Yes," I nodded. "She has always been like that. She has treated me as a dearly beloved son ever since we told her of our engagement." "There has been no cloud?" "Not the slightest! She seemed to share in her daughter's happiness and in mine. She has told me more than once that she thought fate had made us for each other." "And she helped on the wedding-day?" "In a thousand ways. She and Marcia worked together upon the trousseau. She helped with all the plans. Surely, Mr. Lester, if she objected, she wouldn't have waited till the last minute to make her objection known." "Most certainly she would not," I agreed. "Besides," Curtiss added hoarsely, "I don't believe that even her mother could have kept Marcia from me." "She's a widow?" I asked. "Yes. Her husband has been dead ten or twelve years. Marcia is the only child." "She seems to have had her share of sorrow," I remarked. "Her face shows it." "She has not been quite well lately; but she was always a little--well--sad, it seemed to me; serious, you know; smiling sometimes, but rarely laughing. I've fancied she grieved for her husband; but I really know nothing about it." "She doesn't look very strong," I hazarded, in the hope that Curtiss really knew more than he supposed. "She isn't strong; but I've never seen her really ill. She is subject to spells of depression, so Marcia told me. Of course, I've known her only six months." So there _was_ an old trouble, as I had thought, beside which this new one seemed of little moment. She had been schooled by suffering; perhaps I had misjudged her in thinking her indifferent. But it was evident that I could get no further information from Curtiss.