Again there passed a few days without event.  But about nine o’clock on Wednesday evening, as he sat at home over a book, his landlady entered the room with a surprising announcement.

“There’s a young lady wishes to see you, Sir.  Miss Ringrose is the name.”

Hilliard sprang up.

“Please ask her to come in.”

The woman eyed him in a manner he was too excited to understand.

“She would like to speak to you at the door, Sir, if you wouldn’t mind going out.”

He hastened thither.  The front door stood open, and a light from the passage shone on Patty’s face.  In the girl’s look he saw at once that something was wrong.

“Oh, Mr. Hilliard—­I didn’t know your number—­I’ve been to a lot of houses asking for you——­”

“What is it?” he inquired, going out on to the doorstep.

“I called to see Eve, and—­I don’t know what it meant, but she’s gone away.  The landlady says she left this morning with her luggage —­went away for good.  And it’s so strange that she hasn’t let me know anything.  I can’t understand it.  I wanted to ask if you know ——­”

Hilliard stared at the house opposite.

“I?  I know nothing whatever about it.  Come in and tell me——­”

“If you wouldn’t mind coming out——­”

“Yes, yes.  One moment; I’ll get my hat.”

He rejoined the girl, and they turned in the direction of Euston Square, where people were few.

“I couldn’t help coming to see you, Mr. Hilliard,” said Patty, whose manner indicated the gravest concern.  “It has put me in such a fright.  I haven’t seen her since Sunday.  I came to-night, as soon as I could get away from the shop, because I didn’t feel easy in my mind about her.”

“Why did you feel anxious?  What has been going on?”

He search her face.  Patty turned away, kept silence for a moment, al at length, with one of her wonted outbursts of confidence, said nervously: 

“It’s something I can’t explain.  But as you were a friend of hers ——­”

A man came by, and Patty broke off.

CHAPTER VIII

Hilliard waited for her to continue, but Patty kept her eyes down and said no more.

“Did you think,” he asked, “that I was likely to be in Miss Madeley’s confidence?”

“You’ve known her a long time, haven’t you?”

This proof of reticence, or perhaps of deliberate misleading, on Eve’s part astonished Hilliard.  He replied evasively that he had very little acquaintance with Miss Madeley’s affairs, and added: 

“May she not simply have changed her lodgings?”

“Why should she go so suddenly, and without letting me know?”

“What had the landlady to say?”

“She heard her tell the cab to drive to Mudie’s—­the library, you know.”

“Why,” said Hilliard; “that meant, perhaps, that she wanted to return a book before leaving London.  Is there any chance that she has gone home—­to Dudley?  Perhaps her father is ill, and she was sent for.”