Next day after her luncheon she went round again to Mincing Lane, and made inquiry regarding the missing man. The same girl told her that the principal had received a mysterious wire from Paris. "I saw the telegram," she said. "It was from Paris, and was quite abrupt, saying that he would probably return in a week or so." "But what does it all mean?" asked the distressed girl. "I really don’t know," replied the other girl. "Mr. Durrant’s gone away, and that’s all!" That night Marigold went over to Ealing, and to Gerald’s sister she showed the telegram. It puzzled her sorely. "Whatever can Gerald be doing in Paris?" she exclaimed. "Why could he not write to us, eh?" "I don’t know," was the reply of the unnerved girl. "I think he ought to send us some address." "But he may do so later," replied his sister. "Gerald is a man of business. He would realise how troubled we all are." "He seems to have faded out of existence," said the girl, seated in the front parlour of the neat little villa of the neat suburban road. "Yes," said his sister. "He certainly does. I await a letter each morning, but none comes." "But what can he be doing in Paris?" queried Marigold. "Without a doubt, he has lost the confidence of his firm. He pretended to be lying ill here, and they have found out that he isn’t ill at all!" "Yes. The other day a middle-aged man came to see him, but I was forced to admit that he wasn’t here—that he was missing," replied Gerald’s sister. Marigold went home utterly dispirited. What could she do? It was useless to go to the police and raise a hue and cry regarding a man who, from time to time, telegraphed to his employers and to her that he was on the point of returning. So she was compelled to wait. Gerald Durrant had disappeared. He had sent her messages, it is true, messages of comfort, yet when she argued within herself, she saw that he ought, at least, to have given her some address to which she could reply by letter or by telegram. True, Boyne was absent. But he had only been absent for a few days, while her lover had been missing very much longer. Four more days of blank despair crept slowly by. Seated beneath her green-shaded light at the bank, with her great ledger before her, Marigold reckoned up the columns of figures mechanically, and handed them to be checked. They were accounts of all classes of merchants, mostly of profiteers, firms who had made fortunes out of the valour and blood of the gallant fellows who had given their lives for Britain. She felt so unhappy without her lover. Gerald, who had directed those investigations concerning the hooded man who was her aunt’s employer, had disappeared with startling suddenness, yet he had assured her that he was following some mysterious clue. The latter she had proved, by reason of the knowledge of Boyne’s movements, to be non-existent. Was her lover deceiving her? That suspicion caused her the greatest irritation and annoyance.