The hours which succeeded, how slowly, yet swiftly, they dragged their torturing length! slowly, for the moments as they dropped into the abyss of the past seemed deliberately distilled from the bitterest ingredients life could supply; swiftly, for every hour of delay added to the difficulty of the search, on the success of which all Glynn's hopes hung. He exhausted himself wandering to and fro the Rue de L'Evêque, the Rue de Jérusalem, even the Morgue, where he would rather have found the corpse of her he loved than know her alive under such circumstances as the detective's telegram suggested. But this he did not for a moment believe, though through his long mental agony strange doubts would obtrude themselves—more of Lambert than his daughter. He was evidently concealing something. Those vague threats against some unnamed villain, what did they indicate? Knowledge of some possible and real abduction, or merely imaginative fury?
Still, fast or slow, the hours went by. Glynn was finally overcome with fatigue and sleep, so enjoyed a few hours of blessed oblivion.
He woke with a startled sense of wrong-doing in having forgotten even for a moment the awful uncertainty that had laid its curse upon him, and collecting his thoughts, remembered his surprise at not having received a telegraphic message from Lambert. True, he might not have succeeded at once in seeing his supposed daughter.
The expected communication came, however, before he sallied forth to renew the restless round of yesterday——
"Officer mistaken. A fresh track. Am off to Marseilles Will write."
In a sense this was a relief; but Marseilles? that seemed the most unlikely place to find the object of their search. However, all places were unlikely. Lambert had better keep at hand in Paris. He would write and beg him to return.
Glynn had taken his hat and was at the door, when some one knocked, and Deering entered, well-dressed, cool, distinguished-looking, as ever, but with a somewhat haggard aspect, and a set, sinister expression about his mouth.
"I suppose you have heard nothing fresh? no discovery of any clue to the whereabouts of Lambert's daughter?" he asked.
"Nothing. Her father went down to Bordeaux yesterday at the suggestion of M. Claude to identify a girl described as resembling Miss Lambert. I have just had this telegram from him."
"Ha!" said Deering, on reading it, "I doubt if Lambert will afford M. Claude much assistance. I fancy some of his raffish associates have carried off the young lady, and he is too much in their power to be very earnest about discovering or punishing them."