“I have no idea,” said Ralph. “The letter tells nothing. Still she wouldn’t have written so calmly and confidently if her plans had not been well thought out. Evereld is not impulsive. Perhaps she had met friends while you were travelling and has gone to them.” “No, I had a telegram in London from Bruce Wylie who went over to Champéry on purpose to interview a school friend she had met. She had heard nothing whatever about her. I shall have to set a private detective to work.” Ralph flushed. “You would surely not do that?” he said quickly. “Why not? I must find her. And I intend to bring her back to my house.” “Well,” said Ralph, “the one thing that remains absolutely certain is that when Evereld says a thing she means it with her whole heart. She will certainly appeal to the Lord Chancellor, and I don’t think he will compel her to return to your house when he has heard the whole truth.” “Do you dare to assert that I have not been in every respect a faithful and kind guardian to her? I who was her father’s oldest friend?” “I assert nothing,” said Ralph bitterly, as he moved to the door. “But I can’t forget what your friendship for my father led to.” Sir Matthew made no reply, but turned abruptly to the window, the colour mounting to his temples. The closing of the door and the sound of Ralph’s retreating footsteps came as a relief. “If I had but guessed what a serpent’s tooth that boy would prove to me I would have shipped him straight off to the Colonies instead of educating him,” he thought to himself. “I was weak--pitiably weak! It was the look of Denmead’s face as he lay there dead that unmanned me. There was the ghastly quiet of the country, too, and the child with his old-world politeness, and that old lawyer with his suspicions. If I had only been sensible enough to stamp out all sentiment and do the practical thing at once my plans would not be thwarted now by a chit of a girl who has lost her heart to a penniless actor.” His face grew dark with anxiety and trouble as he reflected on the desperate position of his own affairs should Evereld succeed in baffling him. CHAPTER XXVII “When a friend asks, there is no to-morrow.” George Herbert.