Haken grumbled a trifle at being left to explain to Lady Sophia, but on going to the drawing-room he found that his wife had gone to a concert in Park Lane. Thus he was saved the trouble of making things smooth, and went to bed very thankfully. Haken was not a young man, and the interview with Prelice had shaken him greatly. Meanwhile Prelice himself had driven straight to his rooms, and had gone immediately to bed, thinking that he could better argue out the case as it stood when lying down than when sitting or standing. But he was so weary with talk and with the strain of the last few days that he fell sound asleep before he could arrive at any conclusion regarding the guilt or innocence of Madame Marie. It seemed to him that he had only been resting for five minutes when his valet woke him in the morning at nine o'clock; woke him also in a most unpleasant manner by presenting a telegram. Prelice, half awake, tore open the orange-hued envelope, but he was wide awake when he finished reading the news it contained. The wire proved to be from Mrs. Blexey. "Miss Mona has disappeared." That was all the wire said, but it was quite enough. CHAPTER XXIII. HELPLESS. At Lanwin Grange all was confusion. About twelve o'clock on the previous day Mona had left the house with the intention of going to Folkstone to interview Lady Sophia. She was unaware that this formidable personage had returned to London, and wished to explain how much she loved Lord Prelice, so that Lady Sophia might offer no opposition to the marriage. From the time that she had left the Grange she had not been seen. Mrs. Blexey was not alarmed until her young mistress failed to return to dinner, as she had promised. Then the housekeeper had sent a groom with a dog-cart over to the Folkstone hotel at which Lady Sophia was supposed to be stopping. The man had returned with the information that Miss Chent had not been seen at the hotel, and that Lady Sophia Haken had gone back to London. It was then that Mrs. Blexey grew terrified. "Whatever will his lordship and Mr. Shepworth say?" she wailed. "They will be fit to take the skin off me." The butler advised an immediate wire to both the young gentlemen; but Mrs. Blexey, hoping to save the situation, refused to listen, alleging that perhaps Miss Mona, walking across the Downs towards Folkstone, had lost herself. But when the night passed, and still the girl did not put in an appearance, the housekeeper was compelled to send telegrams to Prelice and the barrister. The two friends, oddly enough, met at Charing-Cross Station to go down by the same train. Naturally they secured a first-class carriage in order to talk over the disappearance of Miss Chent. "What do you think about it?" asked Shepworth anxiously. "It is a new move on the part of that blackguard Jadby," replied the other between his teeth. "But would he dare?" "He would dare anything to gain his ends. He tried to shoot you, and now he has kidnapped Mona."