"I couldn't," Andrew answered quietly. "I can't see it now of course, but I like to feel it in my pocket, and it will be the first thing I shall look at when the doctor lets me take off these beastly glasses--if ever he does. Until then--well, I like to feel I've got it. That's all!"
They both smoked furiously for several moments without looking at one another. Duncombe spoke first.
"If she comes back--shall you ever ask her to marry you?"
"I don't know, George. I'm poor, and I'm twelve years older than she is. I don't know."
There was another silence. Then the conversation drifted back once more to the one subject which was monopolizing the thought of both of them.
"I tell you what seems to me to be the most extraordinary part of the whole business," Duncombe said. "First the brother disappears. Then without a word to any one the sister also rushes off to Paris, and vanishes from the face of the earth after a series of extraordinary proceedings. One supposes naturally that if they have come to harm anywhere--if there has been a crime--there must have been a motive. What is it? You say that their banking account has been undisturbed?"
"It was last week. I should hear if any cheques were presented."
"And the boy's letter of credit even has never been drawn upon!"
"Then the motive cannot be robbery. Thank Heaven," Duncombe added, with a little shudder, "that it was the boy who went first."
A great winged insect came buzzing into the room. Duncombe struck viciously at it with the palm of his hand.
"Lord!" he muttered, "what a fool I am! I've never been away from home before, Andrew, without longing to get back, and here I am, just back from Paris in August, from turning night into day, from living just the sort of life I hate, and I'd give anything to be going back there to-morrow. I'm a haunted man, Andrew. I got up last night simply because I couldn't sleep, and walked down as far as the paddock. I seemed to see her face in all the shadowy corners, to see her moving towards me from amongst the trees. And I'm not an imaginative person, Andrew, and I've got no nerves. Look!"
He held out his hand, strong and firm and brown. It was as steady as a rock.
"I can't sleep," he continued, "I can't rest. Is there witchcraft in this thing, Andrew?"