"It was my fault," answered Guy with a sort of harsh bitterness, "at least very largely it was. I spent practically all yesterday with Debenham trying to fix up about the Stanley estate. It was absolutely necessary to get the thing settled before we left England. Finally I went back to dinner at his house, and I didn't get home here till nearly one-o'clock. Spalding had left your letter in my bedroom, but somehow or other--I was tired out and half asleep I suppose--I managed to overlook it, I had left instructions I wasn't to be waked up till nine o'clock this morning, and when Spalding came to call me, there was your letter on the dressing-table." He paused. "Directly I had read it I went down-stairs and rang up Chester Square. The housemaid answered the telephone, and said that Isabel had just left the house, and that Aunt Fanny was still in bed. When I asked if Isabel had mentioned any reason for going out so early, she said that Spalding had rung up a quarter of an hour before and said that you wanted Miss Francis to come over here in a taxi as soon as possible. Well, of course, I guessed there was something wrong at once. I sent for Spalding, and as I expected, he told me that he hadn't been near the telephone all the morning. I was getting really frightened now, so I told the girl to put me through to Aunt Fanny, who has got another receiver in her bedroom. Then it all came out. Somebody, who pretended to be Spalding, had rung up at about twenty to nine and asked for Isabel. He had said you wanted her here, and that she was to take a taxi along as soon as she could manage it. Isabel evidently hadn't the faintest suspicion that it wasn't all right. Aunt Fanny was asleep at the time, and she wouldn't allow her to be waked up. She had just put on her hat and got into a taxi that was waiting a little way down the Square, and that's the very last that any of us have heard of her." Guy's voice shook, but with an effort he managed to control it. "They've got her, Tony," he added despairingly. "I would have given my right hand to have stopped it, but what's the good now? They've got her, and we shall never see her again." Tony laid his hand on his cousin's shoulder. "My dear old Guy," he said quietly: "it wasn't your fault. If any one has been to blame, it's me." He took a couple of turns across the room and came back to where Guy was standing. "Hang it," he said ruefully. "I had no idea I was so fond of Isabel." Guy looked up at him with a rather twisted smile. "I knew you would find it out eventually, Tony," he said. "It's a pity it's happened too late." "Too late be damned," observed Tony calmly. "Even if Da Freitas has got hold of her, do you imagine I am going to let him keep her? I know now that I want Isabel more than anything else in the world. I have always been accustomed to have what I want, and it's a very bad thing to change one's habits suddenly at my age."