“Thanks!” he said. “Will you shake hands?” And she gave him her hand loyally. And he thought it was a very slim and thrilling hand to shake. “Do you know,” he said, “it was exceedingly naughty of you to go and credit me with being such a monster.” “Well,” she replied, “perhaps I never did really believe it.” She smiled at him courageously. “But I was angry with you for objecting to the match. I suppose you won’t deny that you have objected to the match.” “No,” he said, “I shan’t deny that.” “And your reasons?” “I could not disclose them to Mr. Ilam’s cousin,” he answered. “And perhaps they are not as strong as they were. I am beginning to think that just as you accused me wrongly, so I have accused your cousin wrongly. But I can assure you I had better reason than you. Ah, Miss Dartmouth,” he added, “it may well occur that you will infinitely regret ever having come into the City.” “Never!” she said positively. “That’s very polite,” he commented. “We are getting away from the point,” she remarked in a new tone. “I have left your sister in a pitiable state. If you have not had anything to do with the disappearance of Cousin Ilam, who has?” “He may have disappeared voluntarily,” said Carpentaria. “Impossible!” she replied. “I think so too.” Carpentaria agreed. “At first I was capable of believing that he had played an enormous comedy in order to disappear in the most effective manner. But really the comedy grows too enormous to be any longer a comedy. It may be a tragedy by this time.” “And whom do you suspect?” queried Pauline impatiently. “If I were you,” was Carpentaria’s strange response, “I should ask your sister, Miss Rosie.” “Rosie!” “Rosie.” “Mr. Carpentaria, what on earth do you mean?” “I mean that your sister probably knows something of the affair. Where is she at the present moment?” “She is watching Mrs. Ilam, in place of the nurse.” “I gravely doubt it,” said Carpentaria with firmness. “But I have seen her there.” “It is conceivable,” said Carpentaria. “But I gravely doubt if she is still there.” “I shall be compelled to think that after all you are a little mad,” Pauline observed coldly. “We are all more or less mad,” said Carpentaria. “Otherwise your sister, for instance, would not hold long conversations with a highly suspicious character every night from the window of her room.” Pauline, in the light of her knowledge of what had taken place in and about the Ilam bungalow on the first night of her residence there, could scarcely affect not to understand, at any rate partially, Carpentaria’s allusion. “I don’t quite----” she began, lamely. “Do you mean to say,” he interrupted her at once, “do you mean to say, dear lady, that you are entirely unaware of the surreptitious visits of a certain mysterious person to Mr. Ilam’s house?”