“That’s it.”

“Anything else happened there while I’ve been away?”

“No . . . yes . . . well, now that I think of it, there was a big scare a year or so ago about a young peeress who disappeared mysteriously.”

“Was . . . was it Lady Raa?”

“Yes,” said the reporter, and then (controlling myself as well as I could) I listened to a rapid version of what had become known about my dear one down to the moment when she “vanished as utterly as if she had been dropped into the middle of the Irish Sea.”

It is of no use saying what I felt after that, except that flying in an express train to London, I was as impatient of space and time as if I had been in a ship down south stuck fast in the rigid besetment of the ice.

I could not talk, and I dared not think, so I shouted for a sing-song, and my shipmates (who had been a little low at seeing me so silent) jumped at the proposal like schoolboys let loose from school.

Of course O’Sullivan gave us “The Minsthrel Boy”; and Treacle sang “Yew are the enny”; and then I, yes I (Oh, God!), sang “Sally’s the gel,” and every man of my company joined in the ridiculous chorus.

Towards ten o’clock we changed lines on the loop at Waterloo and ran into Charing Cross, where we found another and still bigger crowd of hearty people behind a barrier, with a group of my committee, my fellow explorers, and geographers in general, waiting on the platform.

I could not help it if I made a poor return to their warm-hearted congratulations, for my eyes were once more searching for a face I could not see, so that I was glad and relieved when I heard the superintendent say that the motor-car that was to take me to the hotel was ready and waiting.

But just then O’Sullivan came up and whispered that a priest and a nun were asking to speak to me, and he believed they had news of Mary.

The priest proved to be dear old Father Dan, and the nun to be Sister Veronica, whom my dear one calls Mildred.  At the first sight of their sad-joyful faces something gripped me by the throat, for I knew what they had come to say before they said it—­that my darling was lost, and Father Dan (after some priestly qualms) had concluded that I was the first man who ought to be told of it.

Although this was exactly what I had expected, it fell on me like a thunderbolt, and in spite of the warmth of my welcome home, I believe in my soul I was the most downhearted man alive.

Nevertheless I bundled Father Dan and the Sister and O’Sullivan into the automobile, and jumping in after them, told the chauffeur to drive like the deuce to the hotel.

He could not do that, though, for the crowd in the station-yard surrounded the car and shouted for a speech.  I gave them one, saying heaven knows what, except that their welcome made me ashamed of not having got down to the Pole, but please God I should get there next time or leave my bones on the way.