She acquiesced to this and sat for a moment silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the building across. In the morning light my first impression was verified. Only too often the raising of a woman's veil in my office reveals the ravages of tears, or rouge, or dissipation. My new client turned fearlessly to the window an unlined face, with a clear skin, healthily pale. From where I sat, her profile was beautiful, in spite of its drooping suggestion of trouble; her first embarrassment gone, she had forgotten herself and was intent on her errand. "I hardly know how to begin," she said, "but suppose"--slowly--"suppose that a man, a well-known man, should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming home to dinner, and he--he--" She stopped as if her voice had failed her. "And he does not come?" I prompted. She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in her bag. "How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like that, hardly more than a girl, and lovely! "Ten days." "I should think it ought to be looked into," I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is always a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a man deserting his wife that I am not indignant, the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. "But you will have to tell me more than that. Did this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he--er--drink?" "Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money, but I--believe he was rather lucky." She colored uncomfortably. "Married, I suppose?" I asked casually. "He had been. His wife died when I--" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars. "It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved. But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle. "You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?" "Absolutely." "You have had no word from him?" "None." "He never went away before for any length of time, without telling you?" "No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him." Her voice broke again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to reassure her. "Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried or--even a slight accident would account--" I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wide-eyed. "But, of course, that's unlikely too. He would have papers to identify him." "His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she assented eagerly.