That was all.

Miss Broad's first blundering impression was that somebody was having a joke with her--that she was mistaken, had read the words askew. She looked again.

No; the error, if error there were, was, to that extent, certainly not hers; the words were there as plain as plain could be, and they only.

'If you want Mr Guy Holland, inquire of Miss May Bewicke.'

They were typewritten, occupying a couple of lines. The rest of the sheet was blank--no address, no date, no signature; not a hint to show from whom the message could have come. She looked at the envelope. The face of it was blank; there was nothing on it, inside or out. Where was the boy who had brought it? She turned to see. He had gone, was out of sight. So far as she could perceive, she had the immediate neighbourhood entirely to herself. What did it mean?

The disappointment was so acute that, as she sank back upon the seat, the earth seemed to be whirling round in front of her. She never quite knew whether for a second or two she did not lose her senses altogether. When next she began to notice things, she perceived that the envelope had fallen to the ground, and that the half sheet of paper would probably have followed it had it not been detained by a fold in her dress. She examined them both again, this time more closely, without, however, any satisfactory result.

Of the typewritten words she could make neither head nor tail. Were they meant as a hint--a warning--what? Anyhow, from whom could they have come--to her, there, in the Park? Why had she not asked the boy who had instructed him to give the envelope to her? What a simpleton she had been!

'"Inquire of Miss May Bewicke." What can it mean? "Inquire of Miss May Bewicke." Unless--'

Unless it meant something she did not care to think of. She left the sentence unfinished, even in her own mind.

She arrived at a sudden resolution. It was too late for church, or she told herself it was, supposing her to have been in a church-going mood, which she most emphatically was not. Instead of church she would go to Mr Holland's rooms in Craven Street, and inquire for him there. Under the circumstances, anything, including loss of dignity--and she flattered herself that dignity, as a rule, was her strong point--was better than suspense.

She had some difficulty in finding a cab. In that district of town, cabs do not ply in numbers on Sunday morning. By the time she discovered one she was hot, dusty and, she feared, dishevelled. As the vehicle bore her towards the Strand, her sense of comfort did not increase. If he was not in Craven Street, what should she do? Ye saints and sinners! if he were in gaol!

He was not in Craven Street.

A matronly, pleasant-faced woman opened the door to her.

'Is Mr Holland in?'

'No, miss, he's not.'

'Has he been long gone out?'

'Well, miss, he hasn't been in all night.'

The young lady shivered. The landlady eyed her with shrewd, yet not unfriendly, eyes. She hazarded a question,--

'Excuse me, miss, but are you Miss Broad?'

'That is my name.'

'Would you mind just stepping inside?'

The landlady led the way into a front room. The first thing the young lady saw on entering was her photograph staring at her from the centre of the mantelshelf. A little extra colour tinged her cheeks. The landlady glanced from the original to the likeness, and back again.

'It's very like you, miss, if you'll excuse my saying so. You see, Mr Holland has told me all about it. You have my congratulations, if I might make so bold, for a nicer gentleman I never want to see. I was that pleased when I saw him come walking in the other day. Did you expect to see him, miss?'

'I had an appointment with him. He never kept it. As he has never done such a thing before, I scarcely knew what to think.'

'Well, miss, the truth is, I hardly know what I ought to say.'

'Say everything, please.'

'It was only his nonsense, no doubt, but when he was going out last night I asked him if he should be late. "Well, Mrs Pettifer," he said, "if I am late, you'd better make inquiries for me at Westminster Police Station, for that's where I shall be; they'll have locked me up." When Matilda told me this morning that he hadn't been in all night, I thought of his words directly, because he'd ordered his breakfast for eight o'clock this morning, and, as you say, he's always so dependable--Why, miss, whatever is the matter?'

Miss Broad, who had found refuge in an armchair, was looking very queer indeed.

'Don't you take on, miss. It was only his fun. Mr Holland's full of his jokes. Heaps of gentlemen stay out all night; nothing's happened.'

But the young lady was not to be comforted. She had her own reasons for being of a different opinion. That allusion to Westminster Police Station did not sound like a joke to her. When she quitted Craven Street, she directed the cabman to drive her to a certain number in Victoria Street. She was staring as she went at the two typewritten lines which the mysterious boy had brought in the mysterious envelope.

'I will inquire of Miss Bewicke. It will be better to begin there than--at the other place. There will be time enough for that afterwards. If--if she should have locked him up!'

The potentiality was too horrible. She could not bear to contemplate it. Yet, willy-nilly, it intruded on her fears.

She ascended in the lift to Miss Bewicke's apartments. She knocked with a trembling hand at Miss Bewicke's door. She had to knock a second time before an answer came. Then the door was opened by a tall, thin, saturnine-looking woman, to whom the visitor took a dislike upon the spot.

'Is Miss Bewicke at home?'

'Will you walk in?' It was only when Miss Broad had walked in that she learned that her quest was vain. 'Miss Bewicke is not at home. She went to Brighton this morning.'

'This morning? I thought she was going last night.'

'Who told you that?'

There was something in the speaker's voice which brought the blood to Miss Broad's cheeks with a rush. She stammered.

'I--I heard it somewhere.'

'Your information was learned on good authority; very good. Oh, yes, she meant to go last night, but she was prevented.'

'Prevented--by what?'

'I am not at liberty to say. Are you a friend of Miss Bewicke's?'

There was something in the woman's manner which Miss Broad suspected of being intentionally offensive. She stared at her with bold, insolent eyes, with, in them, what the young lady felt was the suggestion of an insolent grin. That she knew her, Miss Broad was persuaded; she was sure, too, that she was completely cognisant of the fact that she was not Miss Bewicke's friend.

'I am sorry to say that I am not so fortunate as to be able to number myself among Miss Bewicke's friends. I have not even the pleasure of her acquaintance.'

'That is unfortunate, as you say. About her friends Miss Bewicke is particular.'

The suggestion was so gratuitous that Miss Broad was startled.

'Are you a friend of hers?'

'I am her companion; but not for long. You know what it is for one woman to be a companion to another woman. It is not to be her friend. Oh, no. I have been a companion to Miss Bewicke for many years; but soon I go. I have had enough.'

The woman's manner was so odd that Miss Broad wondered if she was a little touched in the head, or if she had been drinking. She looked round the room, at a loss what to say. Her glance lighted on a large panel photograph which occupied the place of honour on the mantelpiece. It was Mr Holland. She recognised it with a start. It was the best likeness of him she had seen. He had not given her a copy, nor any portrait of himself, which was half as good.

Miss Bewicke's companion was watching her.

'You are looking at the photograph? It is Mr Holland, a friend of Miss Bewicke's, the dearest friend she has in the world.'

'You mean he was her friend?'

'He was? He is--none better. Miss Bewicke has many friends--oh, yes, a great many; she is so beautiful--is she not beautiful?--but there are none of them to her like Guy.'

The woman's familiar use of Mr Holland's Christian name stung Miss Broad into silence. That she lied she knew; to say that, to-day, Mr Holland was still Miss Bewicke's dearest friend was to attain the height of the ridiculous. That the young lady knew quite well. She was also aware that, for some reason which, as yet, she did not fathom, this foreign creature was making herself intentionally offensive. None the less, she did not like to hear her lover spoken of in such fashion by such lips. Still less did she like to see his portrait where it was. Had she acted on the impulse of the moment, she would have torn it into shreds. And perhaps she might have gone even as far as that had she not perceived something else, which she liked, if possible, still less than the position occupied by the gentleman's photograph.

On a table lay a walking-stick. A second's glance was sufficient to convince her of the ownership. It was his--a present from herself. She had had it fitted with a gold band; his initials, which she had had cut on it, stared her in the face. What was his walking-stick--her gift--doing there?

The woman's lynx-like eyes were following hers.

'You are looking at the walking-stick? It, also, is Mr Holland's.'

'What is it doing here?'

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

'He left it behind him, I suppose. Perhaps he was in too great a hurry, or Miss Bewicke. Sometimes, when one is in a great hurry to get away, one forgets little things which are of no importance.'

She called his walking-stick--her gift to him--a thing of no importance! What was the creature hinting at? Miss Broad would not condescend to ask, although she longed to know.

'As I tell you, Miss Bewicke is not at home. She is at the Hotel Metropole at Brighton. Would you like to take Mr Holland's walking-stick to--her?' There was an accent on the pronoun which the visitor did not fail to notice. 'What name shall I give to Miss Bewicke?'

'I am Miss Broad.'

'Miss Broad--Letty Broad? Oh, yes, I remember. They were talking and laughing about you--Mr Holland and she. Perhaps, after all, you had better not go down to Brighton.'

When the young lady was back in the street, her brain was a tumult of contradictions. That the woman who called herself Miss Bewicke's companion had, for reasons of her own, been trying to amuse herself at her expense she had not the slightest doubt. That Mr Holland's relations with Miss Bewicke were not what were suggested she was equally certain. None the less she wondered, and she doubted. What was his portrait doing there? Still more, what was his walking-stick? He was carrying it when they last met. Under what circumstances, between this and then, had it found its way to where it was? Where was Mr Holland? That there was a mystery she was convinced. She was almost convinced that Miss Bewicke held the key to it.

Should she run down to Brighton and find out? She would never rest until she knew. She had gone so far; she might as well go farther. She would be there and back in no time. The cabman was told to drive to Victoria. At Victoria a train was just on the point of starting. Miss Broad was travelling Brightonwards before she had quite made up her mind as to whether she really meant to go. When the train stopped at Clapham Junction, she half rose from her seat and all but left the carriage. She might still be able to return home in time for luncheon. But while she dilly-dallied, the train was off. The next stoppage was at Croydon. There would be nothing gained by her alighting there; so she reached Brighton, as she assured herself, without ever having had the slightest intention of doing it. Therefore, and as a matter of course, when the train rattled into the terminus she was not in the best of tempers. She addressed sundry inquiries to herself as she descended to the platform.

'Now what am I to do? I may as well go to the Metropole as I am here. I am not bound to see the woman even if I go. And as for speaking to her'--she curled her lip in a way which was intended to convey a volume of meaning--'I suppose it is possible to avoid the woman, even if I have the misfortune to be under the same roof with her. The hotel's a tolerable size; at anyrate, we'll see.

She did see, and that quickly. As she entered the building, the first person she beheld coming towards her across the hall was Miss May Bewicke.

Which proves, if proof be necessary, that a building may be large, and yet too small.