"A very curious and unexplained coincidence. They both vanished
into space about the self-same time. And nothing more has ever
since been heard of them. Quite an Arabian Nights' affair in its
way--the Enchanted Carpet sort of business, don't you know--wafted
through the air unawares, like Sinbad the Sailor, or the One-eyed
Calender, from London to Bagdad, or Timbuctoo or St. Petersburg. The
OTHER young man one understands about, of course; HE had sufficient
reasons of his own, no doubt, for leaving a country which had
grown too warm for him. But that Granville Kelmscott, a gentleman
of means, the heir to such a fine estate as Tilgate, should disappear
into infinity leaving no trace behind, like a lost comet--and at
the very moment, too, when he was just about to come into the family
property--why, I call it... I call it... I call it--"
His jaw dropped suddenly. He grew deadly pale. Words failed his
stammering tongue. Do what he would, he couldn't finish his sentence.
And yet, nothing very serious had occurred to him in any way. It
was merely that, as he uttered these words, he caught Elma Clifford's
eye, and saw lurking in it a certain gleam of deadly contempt before
which the big blustering man himself had quailed more than once
in many a Surrey drawing-room.
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