"No, I think not. If I need you, I'll wire." "You won't need me," and he smiled again. "You know I'm no good at this kind of work." "I know you'll be working harder than I will, keeping up with things at the office." "Don't worry about that. You intend to stay here?" "Yes; but only for a day or two, I trust. I can't think it a very difficult task to find a young woman who has run away in broad daylight in her wedding finery. Somebody must have seen her--that is, if she ran away at all." "No doubt," he agreed. "Of course you'll find her--it's not about that I'm worrying so much; it's about her motive for doing such a thing. It seems preposterous to suppose that any woman in her right mind would run away half an hour before her wedding. Curtiss saw her at ten o'clock and found her happy, yet an hour later she had taken this desperate step. I wonder, Lester, if you realise just how desperate it was?" "Yes," I said; "I think I do." "Well, I'm free to confess I didn't until I saw its effect on my wife. Why, Lester, it was suicidal--it means social ostracism--no less. Even if it doesn't altogether ruin her life, it will always shadow it. It's something she can never outlive." "Yes," I said again; "it's all that." "And yet she was a thoughtful, self-controlled, well-balanced woman, who would foresee all this--who would realise the consequences more clearly than we can do. Lester--what was it drove her to it?" "Ah, if I only knew! But I'm going to find out!" "I hope you will--and yet I fear it, too. I'm afraid to think of it--I'm afraid to try to guess the secret--I'm afraid I'll unearth some grisly, loathsome skeleton, which should never have seen the light! But I'm sure of one thing," he added, his face hardening. "I think you suspected, too." "What was that?" "Whatever the secret is, Mrs. Lawrence knows it." "Yes," I agreed, "I believe she does." "And had a hand in her daughter's disappearance." "Yes," I said again, "I think that very likely." He stood for a moment longer, looking at me as though half-inclined to say something more; then he shook hands abruptly and left the room. As I turned to sit down again, I noticed, in the chair from which I had arisen, something white crushed into one corner of the seat. I picked it up. It was a handkerchief of dainty lace and it was damp--with tears? CHAPTER VI An Astonishing Request