"He's your cousin right enough."
"And--Mabel Joyce. Are you the Mabel Joyce referred to?"
"I am; we were to have been married to-day--at noon sharp; the registrar--he'll be waiting for us, but he'll have to wait. Mr. Rodney Elmore, that's your cousin and my husband that was to be, he's bolted."
"Bolted? I see. Is that what this letter means?"
"That's just exactly what it means."
"It doesn't mean that--he's--he's killed himself?"
"Not much it doesn't; I know the gentleman. It simply means that, for reasons of his own--I'm one of them and I daresay you're another--he's cut and run."
Gladys's tone could scarcely have been more frigid or her bearing more outwardly calm; unfortunately both the frigidity and the calmness were a little overdone.
"I see. I'm much obliged to you for bringing me--this very interesting piece of news. I believe this is yours. I scarcely think I need detain you longer."
She returned to Mabel both the licence and the letter. Enclosing them one in the other, the girl passed from the room out of the house. Gladys stood staring at the door through which she had left, exactly, if she could only have known it, as Rodney had stared when she had vanished the afternoon before. Then she clenched her fists and shook them in the air.