As the man to whom she had been engaged came into the room, Marjorie rose to meet him. She was not embarrassed, the hour and occasion were too serious for that, and she herself was too broken down for any emotions save those that were intensely real and came from an anguished heart. She went up to him, all pale and drooping, and took him by the hand.

"Thank you, William," she said in a low voice, and that was all.

But in her words Gouldesbrough realized all that she was powerless to say. He heard, with an inward thrill and leap of the pulses, an immense respect for him, which, even in the days of their engagement, he had never heard.

Always, Marjorie had reverenced his attainments, never had she seemed to be so near to him as a man as now.

He looked straight into her eyes, nor did his own flinch from her direct and agonized gaze. The frightful power of his dominating will, the horrible strength of his desire, the intensity of his purpose, enabled him to face her look without a sign of tremor.

He, this man with a marvellous intellect and a soul unutterably stained by the most merciless perfidy, was yet able to look back at her with a kind, sorrowful, and touching glance.

Gouldesbrough wore no metal helmet which should make the horror of his thoughts and knowledge plain for Marjorie to see. The man who had committed a crime as foul and sinister as ever crime was yet, the man who was responsible for the pale face of the girl he loved, the drooping form, the tearful eyes, yet smiled back at her with a mask of patient resignation, deference, and chivalry.

"I am so glad you've come, William," Lady Poole said; "and I'm sure, distressing as all these circumstances are, we cannot thank you enough for what you have done and are doing. No one else in your position would have done so much. And on Marjorie's behalf and on my own I thank you with a full heart."

Sir William bowed.

Then Lady Poole, voluble as she usually was, and unabashed in almost every circumstance hesitated a little. The situation was certainly very delicate, almost unparalleled, indeed, and it was certainly quite outside even her wide experience. But her voice had a genuine ring of thankfulness and gratitude, and the real woman emerged from the veneer of worldliness and baffled ambition.

There was a pause for a moment, no one of the three spoke a single word. Then Lady Poole, by an intuition, said and did exactly the right thing—perhaps old Sir Frederick's "hobby of tact" had not been without its use after all! She sank into a chair.

"There's no need for any explanation, I can see that," she said with a sigh of relief. "With any other man it would have been so different, but it's all right, William, I can see it in your manner and in your presence here. Then let me say once and for all, that both Marjorie and I feel at last we have got some one with us who will help us. We have been terribly alone. We have both felt it most poignantly. After all, women do want a man in a crisis! You, dear William, are the last man we should have thought of asking to help us, and yet you are the first man who has come to do so."

"Dear Lady Poole," Gouldesbrough answered in a quiet voice, "I think perhaps I see a little of what you mean. I am not sure, but I think I do. And I regard it as the greatest privilege and honour to come to you with an offer of help and assistance in your trouble."

He turned to the younger lady.

"Marjorie," he said, "you must treat me just like a brother now. You must forget all that has passed between us, and just lean on me, rely on me, use me. Nothing could make me more happy than just that."

Lady Poole rose again. Who shall say in the volatile brain of the good dame that already in the exhilaration of Sir William's presence and kindness, new hopes and ambitions were not reviving? Lady Poole was a woman, and she was an opportunist too. Woman-like, her mind moved fast into an imaginary future; it had always done so. And it is possible that upon the clouded horizon of her hopes a faint star began to twinkle once more.

Who shall blame Lady Poole?

"Now, my dears," she said in a more matter of fact voice, "I think perhaps you might be happier in discussing this matter if I were to go away. Under the circumstances, I am perfectly aware that it's not the correct thing to do, but that is speaking only from a conventional standpoint, and none of us here can be conventional at a moment like this. If you would rather have me stay, just say so. But it is with pride and pleasure that I know that I can leave you with Marjorie, William, even under these miserable circumstances and in this unhappy business."

Gouldesbrough smiled sadly.

"It is as Marjorie wishes," he said. "But I know that Marjorie knows she can trust me."

The great man saw that once more the girl lifted her eyes and looked at him with something which was almost like reverence. Never before had he seen her look at him like this. Once more the evil joy in the possibility of victory after all leapt through his blood.

No thought nor realization of the terrible thing he had done, of the horrors that he and the pink-faced man in Regent's Park were even now perfecting, came to trouble that moment of evil pride. Everybody had always said, everybody who had been brought into contact with him, always knew that Sir William Gouldesbrough was a strong man!

Lady Poole waited a moment to see if her daughter made any sign of wishing her to remain, and finding that there was none, for Marjorie was standing with drooping head and made no movement, the dowager swept out of the room with rustling skirts, and gently closed the door.

Sir William and Marjorie were left alone.

The man of action asserted himself.

"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."

"Oh, of course, you are right, William," she answered, "and I hardly know what I'm saying, the pain of it all is so great. But then, there is nothing to say. I can't understand, I can hardly realize what has happened."

"For my part," Sir William answered, "I have left no stone unturned to discover the truth. I have been in communication with every force or agency which might be able to explain the thing. And no one has given me the slightest hint, except perhaps——"

She leapt up from her chair, her pale face changed.

"Yes?" she cried, "What is it? What is that?"

Her breath came thick and fast. Sir William remained sitting in his chair and his head was bowed.

"Sit down, Marjorie," he answered; "I didn't mean to say that."

"But you said it," she replied. "Ah! my ears are very keen, and there was something in your voice which had meaning. William, what is it? What is it?"

"Nothing," he answered in a deep, decisive voice.

But the voice brought no conviction to her ears. She had detected, or thought she had detected, the note of an inner knowledge when he had first spoken. She crossed the room with rapid strides and laid her white hand upon his shoulder.

"You've got to tell me," she said imperiously. And her touch thrilled him through and through with an exquisite agony and an exquisite joy.

"It's nothing," he repeated.

Now there was less conviction than ever in his voice. She laughed hysterically. "William," she said, "I know you so well, you can't hide anything from me. There's something you can tell me. Whatever it may be, good or bad, you've just got to tell me."

At that he looked up at her, and his face, she saw, was drawn and frightened.

"Marjorie," he said, "don't let any words of mine persuade you into any belief. Since you ask me I must say what I have got to say. But mind you, I am in no way convinced myself that what I am going to tell you is more than mere idle supposition."

"Tell me," she whispered, and her voice hissed like escaping steam.

"Well, it's just this," he said, "and it's awfully hard for me even to hint such a thing to you. But, you know, Rathbone had recently made rather a friend of poor Eustace Charliewood. I like Charliewood; you never did. A man's point of view and a girl's point of view are quite different about a man. But of course I can't pretend that Charliewood is exactly, well—er—what you might call—I don't know quite how to put it, Marjorie."

"I know," she said with a shudder of disgust "I know. Go on."

"Well, just before Rathbone disappeared those two seemed to have been about together a good deal, and of course Charliewood is a man who has some rather strange acquaintances, especially in the theatrical world. That is to say, in the sub-theatrical world. Marjorie, I hardly know how to put it to you, and I think I had better stop."

"Go on!" she cried once more.

"Well," he said wearily, "Rathbone was a good fellow, no doubt, but he is a young man, and no girl really knows what the life of a young man really is or may be. I know that Charliewood introduced Rathbone to a certain girl. Oh, Marjorie, I can't go on, these suspicions are unworthy."

"Terribly unworthy," she cried, standing up to her full height, and then in a moment she drooped to him, and once more she asked him to go on.

He told her of certain meetings, saying that there could have been, of course, no harm in them, skilfully hinting at this or that, and then testifying to his utter disbelief in the suspicions that he himself had provoked. She listened to him, growing whiter and whiter. At last his hesitating speech died away into silence, and she stood looking at him.

"It might be," she whispered, half to herself, "it might be, but I do not think it could be. No man could be so unutterably cruel, so unutterably base. I have made you tell me this, William, and I know that you yourself do not believe it. He could not be so wicked as to sacrifice everything for one of those people."

And then Sir William rose.

"No," he said, "he couldn't. I feel it, though I don't know him. Marjorie, no living man could leave you for one of the vulgar syrens of the half world."

She looked at him for a moment as he put the thing in plain language, and then burst into a passion of weeping.

"I can't bear any more, William," she said between her sobs. "Go now, but find him. Oh, find him!"