Raleigh Gilmore did not hesitate to assert his conviction that there had been no abduction in the case. Lady Vera had simply run away from fear of the threatened suit against her, knowing that she could not defend herself against the prosecution, and ashamed to stay and face the trial where she would be branded as a beautiful and lying impostor whom the late earl had adopted as his daughter.
There was not the slightest likelihood that she would ever return, he asserted, vehemently, and he would have liked to take possession of Fairvale at once, but the strong arm of the law held him back, and meanwhile, Sir Harry Clive engaged the most eminent lawyers to defend the missing heiress.
A man was sent to America to collect information at Washington. No pains nor expense was spared on either side to make the contest a close and exciting one. Raleigh Gilmore found few believers in his cause, and few friends.
But amid all the storm of wonder and conjecture in London, there was one woman whose suspicions had pointed, like Philip Lockhart's, unerringly to the truth. This was Ivy Cleveland. Her jealous instincts had at once settled upon her whilom husband as the abductor of Lady Vera.
Meanwhile the weeks wane slowly with no tidings of the lost one. The blackest mystery enshrouds her fate. The keen detectives are baffled and thrown off the scent by Leslie Noble's inimitable sang froid. He leads the careless life of a man about town, never leaving the city, his slightest actions open to scrutiny, no mystery seeming to be hidden under his comings and goings.
But though the detectives begin to hint that they are beating about the wrong bush, Colonel Lockhart's firm convictions are in no wise altered.
He holds them closely to their duty, though they find nothing suspicious either in the movements of Mr. Noble or Mrs. Cleveland.
But though Colonel Lockhart is outwardly so calm and firm, his noble heart is wrung with despair over the fate of his lost Vera.
"My poor Phil, this terrible sorrow is making an old man of you," his sister sighs, sorrowfully, as she threads her jeweled fingers softly through his hair.
"It is hard lines upon me, that is true, Nella," he answers, with a repressed sigh, as he draws his arm around her waist.