"You mean it?"
"God knows I do. If ever I took you seriously, George—if ever I feared to lose the woman I love—well, I should be a coward for my own sake to rob her of help when she needs it so greatly. Be her friend, George, and mine. For the rest the fates must provide!"
"The fates!" Duncombe answered. "Ay, it seems to me that they have been busy about my head to-night. It is settled, then. I will go!"
CHAPTER VI
THE VANISHING LADY
At precisely half-past nine on the following evening Duncombe alighted from his petite voiture in the courtyard of the Grand Hotel, and making his way into the office engaged a room. And then he asked the question which a hundred times on the way over he had imagined himself asking. A man to whom nervousness in any shape was almost unknown, he found himself only able to control his voice and manner with the greatest difficulty. In a few moments he might see her.
"You have a young English lady—Miss Poynton—staying here, I believe," he said. "Can you tell me if she is in now?"
The clerk looked at him with sudden interest.