"Not from you?" He remembered Knowles's diplomatic reception of the epistle on its first appearance. "I suppose that you will say next that this is not a lock of your hair?" "My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my hair! Why, it's not in the least bit like my hair!" Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as color was concerned it was an almost perfect match. The duke turned to Mr. Dacre. "Ivor, I've had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go through much more, something will crack!" He touched his forehead. "I think it's my turn to take a chair." Not the one which the duchess had vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of him; he thrust his hands into his trousers pockets; he said, in a tone which was not gloomy but absolutely grewsome: "Might I ask, Mabel, if you have been kidnaped?" "Kidnaped?" "The word I used was 'kidnaped.' But I will spell it if you like. Or I will get a dictionary, that you may see its meaning." The duchess looked as if she was beginning to be not quite sure if she was awake or sleeping. She turned to Ivor. "Mr. Dacre, has the accident affected Hereward's brain?" The duke took the words out of his cousin's mouth. "On that point, my dear, let me ease your mind. I don't know if you are under the impression that I should be the same shape after a Pickford's van had run over me as I was before; but, in any case, I have not been run over by a Pickford's van. So far as I am concerned there has been no accident. Dismiss that delusion from your mind." "Oh!" "You appear surprised. One might even think that you were sorry. But may I now ask what you did when you arrived at Draper's Buildings?" "Did! I looked for you!" "Indeed! And when you had looked in vain, what was the next item in your programme?" The lady shrank still farther from him. "Hereward, have you been having a jest at my expense? Can you have been so cruel?" Tears stood in her eyes. Rising, the duke laid his hand upon her arm. "Mabel, tell me--what did you do when you had looked for me in vain?" "I looked for you upstairs and downstairs and everywhere. It was quite a large place, it took me ever such a time. I thought that I should go distracted. Nobody seemed to know anything about you, or even that there had been an accident at all--it was all offices. I couldn't make it out in the least, and the people didn't seem to be able to make me out either. So when I couldn't find you anywhere I came straight home again." The duke was silent for a moment. Then with funereal gravity he turned to Mr. Dacre. He put to him this question: "Ivor, what are you laughing at?" Mr. Dacre drew his hand across his mouth with rather a suspicious gesture. "My dear fellow, only a smile!" The duchess looked from one to the other. "What have you two been doing? What is the joke?" With an air of preternatural solemnity the duke took two letters from the breast pocket of his coat.