"I certainly did--tried my level best, but couldn't make it. Those Kingdon sisters are a pair of Tartars. Both of them were there. The elder one was a beauty when she was young, I fancy, but she's seen some trying times since, to judge from her face. She's got mighty handsome eyes, even yet--and my! how they can flash. Well, they sent me to the right-about as soon as they learned my errand. I tried all my wiles," he added, with a little rueful smile, "and in vain." "But intuition's hardly enough to go on," I suggested. "Of course there's more than that. It's the only house she could have reached without being seen. There's a path leads to it through a grove which screens it from the street. If she'd gone in any other direction, she'd have had to venture out into the open, where somebody would have been sure to see her. Remember, she was in her wedding-dress, and there were probably a good many people standing around watching the house, as they always do at these fashionable weddings." Perhaps something in my face betrayed me; at any rate, he looked at me with a sudden intent interest. "See here, Lester," he said, "I believe you're in on this thing yourself." "Not for publication." "Agreed. Now let's have it." "Well," I explained, "I'm working for Curtiss. I'm trying to find Miss Lawrence. He thinks he's entitled to an explanation." Godfrey nodded quickly. "Any man would think so," he said. "How are you going about it?" "I'm going to take advantage of the hint you just gave me." "And go to the Kingdon house?" "Yes. I believe Miss Lawrence is there, myself. I thought so last night when I came to it after following that path through the grove." "So you'd discovered it, too! Well, I wish you luck. Of course, we may be all wrong. I don't believe there are any other pointers I can give you," he added, "or I'd be glad to. I suppose you saw Mrs. Lawrence?" "Oh yes." "How was she affected?" "Not so deeply as you'd expect," I said. He gazed at me with narrowed eyes. "Has it occurred to you, Lester," he said, at last, "that Miss Lawrence may not have gone away of her own accord at all; that there may be a plot against her; that she was forced to go, or perhaps even shut up in some room in the Lawrence house?" "Yes; I'd thought of it. I even put it to Mrs. Lawrence." "And what did she say?" "She laughed at me. She said her daughter was a strong girl, who wouldn't let herself be abducted without a struggle, and that a single scream would have alarmed the house." "But suppose she'd been drugged," suggested Godfrey. "Then she would have neither screamed nor struggled." "Last night," I said, "I was half-inclined to believe that something of the sort had happened. I'd forgotten one fact which absolutely disproves it. She left a note behind her--or, at least, wrote it and sent it back after she ran away." "Ah--she did?"