It was now approaching the end of the week, and still there was no sign of Morris Thornton, to the intense disappointment of his daughter Kitty, who was all impatience to see him.

As each day in that week of terror to Francis Eversleigh went past, he sank further and further into a slough of despond, and became a prey to deep melancholy. The routine of his office work, with its appeal to long-established habit, and the pressure to keep up appearances so far as it was possible, helped him a little during the day; but in the evenings, when his family were around him, and in the long, broken nights, when his wife lay asleep by his side, he abandoned himself to the deepest dejection.

Going to his office each morning, he speculated drearily, with aching heart, whether this day or the next would see Morris Thornton walk in, bringing ruin with him. "How am I to meet him?" Eversleigh asked himself over and over again, but saw no answer.

Silwood had not spoken to him again except on such items of business as had to be discussed by them together. These consultations would have had something farcical in them for him if the situation had not been so wholly tragical. He marvelled at the matter-of-fact way Silwood went about these and other affairs.

Very quietly and methodically Silwood went on maturing his plans, nor did he refer to them any more when talking to Eversleigh; but he had paid another visit in disguise to Douglas Street, Stepney, and had warned his wife to be ready to move when he gave the word. He had also intimated, but more plainly, to Williamson, that he would take a holiday very soon—his reason, he alleged for taking it, being the great heat which still continued. Never had there been known so hot a July. Williamson admitted in his thoughts that the reason was an excellent one, but wondered why Mr. Eversleigh, who continued to look very ill, did not talk of taking a vacation instead of his partner, who seemed to be very much in his usual health.

On the Saturday of that week, Cooper Silwood, whose punctuality had hitherto been invariable, did not appear at the office when half-past ten came round, and Williamson waited for him in vain for some time. A little after eleven, however, the head-clerk received a note from him, saying that he had gone to the Continent, and intended making for the north of Italy, where he had been some years before. He went on to say he was not certain how long he would be away, but it would be for two or three weeks, perhaps a month.

Carefully as Silwood had prepared the way, Williamson could not but be surprised at the suddenness with which, in the end, his principal had departed, and naturally his suspicions of there being something wrong were increased; but they remained indefinite and vague, for he could fasten on nothing tangible.

In the course of the morning, Francis Eversleigh, for the purpose of asking Silwood a question, went into the latter's room, and found it empty. It was evident, too, from the state in which it was, that Silwood had not been there that day. He at once leapt to the conclusion that Silwood had gone away—in plain terms, had absconded—an eventuality for which he was not altogether unprepared, as it had been part of the scheme Silwood had mooted to him after the confession of the defalcations, and also on the occasion of their interview at Ivydene.

Still, this might not be the explanation, and Eversleigh, after a few seconds' thought, put on his hat and walked up to Silwood's private chambers in Stone Buildings. Here he found the door locked, and a sheet of paper pinned to it, on which was written, "Out of Town."

His conjecture thus confirmed, it was none the less a terrible shock to Francis Eversleigh; even though he had anticipated it, it was nevertheless hard to bear.

"He has left me to stand it all alone," he thought, but even as he said this to himself, his common sense reasserted itself. "But what will his flight benefit him? Ultimately he will be hunted down; he cannot escape the law; no one can."

Then, hardly knowing what he was doing, he tried the door again, pulling at the handle with all his might, but it was to no purpose. He stood gazing gloomily at the closed door.

"I have a great mind to have it broken open," he muttered. "I can easily frame some excuse for doing so—say he has forgotten something. But if I did have the door opened, what would be the use? What good would it do? It would not bring him back; it would not bring the money back. No, best leave it alone."

Moving with slow, halting steps down the stairs, he kept asking himself the question, "What am I to do now?" His agony of mind was almost beyond human endurance as this question incessantly hammered on his brain, obscuring and dulling his powers. Then, in a muddled sort of way, he began to reason.

First, he might go to the authorities and incriminate himself; but no one, he told himself, was required to do that; it was too much to expect any one to do.

Second, he might destroy himself, and so make an end. Was this not the best course to pursue? With this idea in his mind, he remembered a shop in the Strand, in the window of which he had seen revolvers for sale. Why not buy one and be done with it all? "Why not?" he asked himself, and turned his face towards the Strand. But he had only gone a few paces when the thought of his wife and children was too poignant to allow him to proceed further with his desperate purpose, and so he faced about and returned to New Square, thinking, thinking of what he was to do.

There was only one thing to do, he concluded, and that was to continue doing his work at the office as best he could till the crash came. It could not be long in coming, he reflected with indescribable bitterness, for was not Morris Thornton already overdue?

He had scarcely got seated in his own room when his son Ernest came in, and remarked that Mr. Silwood had gone for a holiday.

"I had not heard that he intended going," he went on; "in fact, I was astonished to hear of his taking a holiday just now. Mr. Williamson tells me he has left for the Continent."

"Yes," said Francis Eversleigh, somewhat vacantly, "he has gone for a holiday. I suppose I have forgotten to mention to you that he was going abroad for a while," he continued, pulling himself together. "He has not had a holiday for some years."

"I see. By-the-way," said Ernest, "who in his absence is to look after his department?"

"I'll do so myself," observed the other, quietly.

"But, father," objected Ernest, "you are not well enough——"

"Oh, yes, I am," protested Eversleigh. "I'll attend to it myself, my boy."

"Why not let me do it?"

"I had rather not," answered his father, sharply; "I prefer to do it myself."

Eversleigh knew very well that it would never do to let any one but himself look after Silwood's department.

The day of Silwood's disappearance wore to its end; the next day, Sunday, passed. It saw the lovers at Ivydene much engrossed with themselves, but not to such an extent as to prevent many comments on the delay in Morris Thornton's coming, and some surmises as to its cause, the chief of which was that he was carrying out his idea of giving Kitty a "surprise"—carrying it a little further than she had expected. Though she was disappointed, she was not alarmed.

On the Monday of that week, Francis Eversleigh, looking more haggard and wretched than before, was again at 176, New Square.

"Will Thornton come to-day?" he asked himself, despairingly.

He strove to keep calm and hide his sufferings from the world, but every moment was torture. Yet Monday went the way of all former Mondays, and still Morris Thornton did not come. And so it was with Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday; the week was gone, and Thornton had not appeared!

Pondering this fact, Eversleigh, who remembered what Thornton had said about his ill-health, was inclined to the conclusion that somewhere on the road his old friend had had an attack, and had broken down. But, if this were the case, why had he not sent, or caused to be sent, a message to the firm or to his daughter? Eversleigh knew she had not heard anything further from her father, nor had the firm heard from Thornton.

In one sense, the non-appearance of Thornton was a relief to Francis Eversleigh—it put the day of judgment off; but in another, the prolonging of the suspense intensified his mental agony.

Thornton's silence was as terrible as it was really inexplicable.

Kitty, who was not aware of her father's serious condition, and hence could not frame from that circumstance a possible explanation of his not coming, was greatly perplexed.

At first she felt no fear, and kept saying to herself and to Gilbert—to whom, of course, she talked of all that was in her heart—that she would see her father to-morrow or next day; but to-morrow became to-day, and next day to-morrow, and yet he did not appear. And there was nothing from him—not a single line!

Gilbert, lover-like, did his utmost to cheer her, saying what was obviously probable—her father had been unexpectedly delayed, but would be here very soon, and so on—and he spoke with such cheeriness that she gained some confidence from his. But as the days sped by, and Morris Thornton came not nor sent word, her apprehensions increased, and all Gilbert's loving speeches could not allay them. Gilbert, too, began to wonder not a little what it all meant.

It at length became evident to him that there was something peculiarly significant in the non-appearance and silence of Morris Thornton. He spoke what was in his mind to his father, who, in reply, told him the only hypothesis he could form was that Thornton had fallen ill at some point in the course of the journey, though that did not account for nothing being heard of him. Gilbert now learned for the first time of the precarious state of Thornton's health. He agreed with his father that nothing should be said about it to Kitty, as it could not but add to her anxiety.

But what Gilbert had heard made him comply all the more eagerly with a suggestion Kitty offered on the next Sunday, when they were talking on this subject, which temporarily had assumed more importance almost than their love.

This was that a cablegram should be sent to Vancouver to Morris Thornton, asking when she was to expect to see him in London.

Gilbert despatched the cablegram for her from the Central Telegraph Office in the Strand, on his return to town late that evening.

No answer was received by the girl till far on in the afternoon of Monday.

The first thing she noticed on looking at the reply message was that it was not signed by her father, but by his local agent.

Then she read the whole cablegram, which ran—

"Your father sailed from New York for Southampton by St. Louis, July 21. No further advices. Wallace."

"July 21," said Kitty to herself. "Why, he ought to have been here a week ago at least."

For it was now Monday, August 9th!

Eighteen days had elapsed since the sailing of the St. Louis from New York, on July 21st!