At eleven o'clock next morning--as soon, in fact, as I had drunk my coffee and was comfortably shaved and dressed--I drove round to Cadogan Square in search of Sylvia. I had no very clear idea what warning I was to give her when we met; indeed I felt wholly ridiculous and slightly resentful. However, my word had gone forth, and I was indisposed to upset the Seraph by breaking it. I left him in the library, silent and pale, writing hard and accumulating an industrious pile of manuscript against my return. By morning light no trace remained of his overnight excitement.

To my secret relief Sylvia was not in when I arrived. The man believed she was shopping and would be out to luncheon, but if I called again about three I should probably find her at home. It hardly seemed worth my while to return to Adelphi Terrace, so I ordered some cigars, took a turn in the Park, lunched at the Club, and talked mild scandal with Paddy Culling. At three I presented myself once more in Cadogan Square.

The door stood open, and Sylvia appeared in sight as I mounted the steps.

"Worse and worse!" she exclaimed as she gave me a hurried shake of the hand. "I was so sorry to be out when you called this morning. Look here, will you go inside and tell mother you're coming to dinner to-night."

"But I'm dining out already."

"Oh, well, when will you come? Ring up and fix a night. I must simply fly now."

"It won't take a minute."

"Honestly I can't wait! I've got to go down to Chiswick of all unearthly places! My poor old darling of a fraulein's been taken ill and she's got no one to look after her. I _must_ just see she's got everything she wants. It's horribly rude, but you will forgive me, won't you? She rang up at half-past twelve, and I've only just got back."

Touching my hand with the tips of her fingers, she flashed down the steps before I could stop her. The bearded Orthodox Church retainer was waiting at the kerb, and I heard her call out "Twenty-seven, Teignmouth Road, Chiswick," as he slammed the door and clambered into his seat. I caught my last glimpse of her rounding the corner into Sloane Street, the same black and white study that I had admired when I first visited Gladys--white dress, black hat; white skin, dark hair, and soft unfathomable brown eyes; a splash of red at the throat, a flush of colour in her cheeks. Then I hailed a taxi on my own account and drove back to Adelphi Terrace.

The Seraph was still in the library, sitting as I had left him more than four hours before. An empty coffee cup at his elbow marked the only visible difference. He was writing quicker than I think I have ever seen a man write, and allowed me to enter the room and drop into an armchair by the window without raising his eyes or appearing to notice my presence. I had been there a full five minutes before he condescended--still without looking up from his writing--to address me.

"You couldn't stop her, then?"

"No."

"But you saw her?"

"Just for a moment."

"'Just for a moment.' Those were the words I had used."

He stopped writing, drew a line under the last words, blotted the page and threw it face-downwards on the pile of manuscript. Then for the first time our eyes met, and I saw it was only by biting his lips and gripping the arms of the chair that he could keep control over himself.

"You'd like some tea," he said, in the manner of a man recalling his mind from a distance. "Can you reach the bell?"

"Is this the end of the chapter?" I asked as he tidied the pile of manuscript and bored it with a paper fastener.

"It's the end of everything."

"How far does it carry you?"

"To your parting from Sylvia."

"Present time, in fact?"

"Forty minutes ago."

I checked him by my watch. "And what now?" I asked.

He looked up at me, looked through me, I might say, and sat staring at the window without answering.

The next two hours were the most uncomfortable I have ever spent. If in old age my guardian angel offers me the chance of living my whole life over again, I shall refuse the offer if I am compelled to endure once again that silent July afternoon. The Seraph sat from four till six without speech or movement. As the sun's rays lengthened, they fell on his face and lit it with cold, merciless limelight. He had started pale and grew gradually grey; the eyes seemed to darken and increase in size as the face became momentarily more pinched and drawn. I could see the lips whitening and drying, the forehead dewing with tiny beads of perspiration.

I made a brave show of noticing nothing. Tea was brought in; I poured him out a cup, drank three myself, and ostentatiously sampled two varieties of sandwich and one of cake. I cut my cigar noisily, damned with audible good humour when the matches refused to strike, picked up a review and threw it down again, and wandered round the room in search of a book, humming to myself the while.

At six I could stand it no longer.

"I'm going to play the piano, Seraph," I said.

"For pity's sake don't!" he begged me, with a shudder; but I had my way.

When the _City of Pekin_ went down in '95 as she tried to round the Horn, one of my fellow-passengers was a gigantic, iron-nerved man from one of the Western States. I suppose we all of us found it trying work to sit calm while the boats were lowered away: no one knew how long we could keep our heads above water and we all had a shrewd suspicion that the boat accommodation was insufficient. We should have been more miserable than we were if it had not occurred to the Westerner to distract our minds. In spite of a thirty-degree list he sat down to the piano and I helped hold him in position while we thundered out the old songs that every one knows without consciously learning--"Clementine,"

"The Tarpaulin Jacket," "In Cellar Cool." We were taking a call for "The Tavern in the Town" when word reached us that there was room in the last boat.

I set myself to distract the Seraph's mind, and gave him a tireless succession of waltzes and ragtimes till eight o'clock. Then the bell of the telephone rang, and I was told Philip Roden wished to speak to me.

"It's about Sylvia," he began. "She hasn't come back yet, and we don't know where she is. The man says you had a word with her as she started out: did she say where she was going?"

I told him of the message from Chiswick, and repeated the address I had heard her give the chauffeur.

"I don't know what the matter was," I added. "Sylvia may have found the woman worse than she expected. Hadn't you better inquire who took the message and see if he or she can throw any light on the mystery?"

I was half dressed for dinner when Philip rang me up again, this time with well-marked anxiety in his voice.

"I say, there's something very fishy about this," he began. "I've just rung up the Chiswick address and the Fraulein answered in person. She wasn't ill, she hadn't been ill, and she certainly hadn't sent any message to Sylvia."

"Well, but who----?" I started.

"Lord knows!" he answered. "It might be any one. The address is a boarding house with a common telephone: any one in the house could have used it. You said twelve-thirty, didn't you? The Fraulein was out in Richmond Park at twelve-thirty."

"What about Sylvia?" I asked.

"That's the devil of it: Sylvia hadn't been near the place. When was it exactly that you saw her? Three-five, three-ten? And she turned into Sloane Street? North or South? Well, North's the Knightsbridge end. And that's all you can say?"

I mentioned the invitation she had given me, and asked if I could be of any assistance in helping to trace her. Philip told me he was going at once to Chiswick to investigate the mystery of the telephone, and promised to advise me if there was anything fresh to report. Then he rang off, and I gave a _resume_ of our conversation to the Seraph. He had just come out of the bath and was sitting wrapped in a towel on the edge of the bed. I remember noticing at the time how thin he had gone the last few weeks: he had always been slightly built, but the outline of his collarbones and ribs was sharply discernible under the skin.

"I think it would be rather friendly if I went round after dinner to see if there's any news of her," I concluded.

"There won't be," he answered.

"Well, that of course we can't say."

"_I_ can. They won't have found her, they don't know where she is."

"Philip may hear something in Chiswick; it looks like a silly practical joke."

"But you know it isn't."

"I don't know what to think," I answered, as I returned to my room and the final stages of my toilet. I soon came back, however, to tie my tie in front of his glass and propound a random question. "I suppose _you_ don't know where she is?"