"Don’t kick, laddie. I’m to blame for leaving our precious vanishing nobleman in the hands of a man in love. What next?" "I hurried back to St. Pancras, and, just missing the fast train which afterwards picked up the 8.45 passengers at the scene of the accident, had to kick my heels until the last train started. But it was no accident, Uncle Jem. A big baulk of timber had been placed across the rails, they told me at Harpenden." The General knitted his brows and pondered the problem, presently suggesting tentatively that there was no proof that the Duke had after all gone in the 8.45. He might, on finding himself suddenly deprived of his companion, have got out before it started. But this theory was at once knocked on the head by Forsyth’s assertion that the train had begun to move before he left the platform, and that Beaumanoir, still seated in the "engaged" compartment, had waved him farewell. If the Duke had not got out at an intermediate station, he must have disappeared at the place of derailment, the latter contingency being the more probable. Also the most alarming, because the stranded passengers had had to wait for three-quarters of an hour at the side of the line in the dark, at a remote spot surrounded by woods. "Humph! It looks very much as if they’d got him this time," was the General’s final comment. And he straightway walked over to the sideboard and poured himself out a glass of wine, motioning his nephew to join him. The action was significant of conclusiveness, and seemed to say that, doom having overtaken the Duke, there was nothing more to be done. The old gentleman drank his wine slowly, then turned to Forsyth with the fierce exclamation: "First time Jem Sadgrove was ever beaten by a woman. Mrs. Talmage Eglinton, or whatever she may choose to call herself, has scored a record." "Mrs. Talmage Eglinton! What on earth has she got to do with it?" was Forsyth’s astounded rejoinder.