"Sit down, Marjorie," he said in a commonplace tone, "and just let me talk to you on pure matters of fact. Now, my dear, we haven't seen each other since you wrote me the letter telling me that our engagement was a mistake. You know what my reply to that was, and I believe and trust you know that I shall remain perfectly true to both the spirit and actual words of that communication. That's all we need say now, except just this: I loved you dearly and I love you dearly now. I had hoped that we might have been very happy together and that I might have spent my life in your service. But that was not to be in the way that I had hoped. At the same time, I am not a man easily moved or changed, and if I cannot be yours in one way, dear girl, I will be yours in another. However, that's all about that. Now, then, let me tell you how hard I have been trying to discover the truth of this astounding disappearance of poor Mr. Guy Rathbone." A low sob came from the girl in the chair. It was a sob not only of regret for her lost lover, but it had the same note of reverence, of utter appreciation, of her first words. "You are too good," she said. "William, I have treated you horribly badly. You are too good. Oh, you are _too_ good!" "Hush!" he said in a sharp staccato voice. "We agreed that aspect of the question wasn't to be spoken of any more. The past is the past, and, my dear little girl, I beg you to realize it. You loved poor Guy Rathbone, and he seems to have been wiped out of ordinary life. My business is to find him again for you, so that you may be happy. I have been trying to do the utmost in my power for days. I have done everything that my mind could suggest, and as yet nothing has occurred. Now, Marjorie, let's just be business-like. Tell me what you think about the matter, and I will tell you what I think. See if our two brains cannot hit on something which will help us." "William," she said with a full note, a chord rather, of deep pain in her voice--"William, I don't know what to think. I can't understand it. I am lost in utter darkness. There seems no possible reason why he should have gone away. I can only think that the worst has happened, and that some terrible people must have killed him." "But why?" "Oh," she answered almost hysterically, "he was so beautiful and so strong. They must have killed him because he was so different to other men." She did not see the tall man who sat before her wince and quiver. She did not see his face change and contort itself into malignancy. She did not realize that these innocent words, wrung from a simple distressed and loving heart, meant awful things for the man she longed for. "But, Marjorie," the voice came steady and strong, "you know that is just a little fantastic, if you will forgive me for saying so. People don't go about injuring other people because they are better-looking or have finer natures than themselves. They only say unkind things about them, they don't kill them, you know."