“None!  None!  Shall we ever have news of him, I wonder?  Must we go on always and never know?  It seems to me almost incredible that any one could disappear so completely.  And yet, I dare say, many people have done it before and have been as carefully sought for.  If only I could believe that he is alive!  If only I could believe that!”

“I believe it,” said Ste. Marie.

“Ah,” she said, “you say that to cheer me.  You have no reason to offer.”

“Dead bodies very seldom disappear completely,” said he.  “If your brother died anywhere there would be a record of the death.  If he were accidentally killed there would be a record of that, too; and, of course, you are having all such records constantly searched?”

“Oh yes,” she said.  “Yes, of course—­at least, I suppose so.  My uncle has been directing the search.  Of course, he would take an obvious precaution like that.”

“Naturally,” said Ste. Marie.  “Your uncle, I should say, is an unusually careful man.”  He paused a moment to smile.  “He makes his little mistakes, though.  I told you about that man O’Hara, and about how sure Captain Stewart was that the name was Powers.  Do you know”—­Ste. Marie had been walking up and down the room, but he halted to face her—­“do you know, I have a very strong feeling that if one could find this man O’Hara, one would learn something about what became of your brother?  I have no reason for thinking that, but I feel it.”

“Oh,” said the girl, doubtfully, “I hardly think that could be so.  What motive could the man have for harming my brother?”

“None,” said Ste. Marie; “but he might have an excellent motive for hiding him away—­kidnapping him.  Is that the word?  Yes, I know, you’re going to say that no demand has been made for money, and that is where my argument—­if I can call it an argument—­is weak.  But the fellow may be biding his time.  Anyhow, I should like to have five minutes alone with him.  I’ll tell you another thing.  It’s a trifle, and it may be of no consequence, but I add it to my vague and—­if you like—­foolish feeling, and make something out of it.  I happened, some days ago, to meet at the Cafe de Paris a man who I knew used to know this O’Hara.  He was not, I think, a friend of his at all, but an acquaintance.  I asked him what had become of O’Hara, saying that I hadn’t seen him in some weeks.  Well, this man said O’Hara had gone away somewhere a couple of months ago.  He didn’t seem at all surprised, for it appears the Irishman—­if he is an Irishman—­is decidedly a haphazard sort of person, here to-day, gone to-morrow.  No, the man wasn’t surprised, but he was rather angry, because he said O’Hara owed him some money.  I said I thought he must be mistaken about the fellow’s absence, because I’d seen him in the street within the month—­on the evening of our dinner-party, you remember—­but this man was very sure that I had made a mistake.  He said that if O’Hara had been in town he was sure to have known it.  Well, the point is here.  Your brother disappears at a certain time.  At the same time this Irish adventurer disappears, too, and your brother was known to have frequented the Irishman’s company.  It may be only a coincidence, but I can’t help feeling that there’s something in it.”