Mr. Taynton ran to the door, as if to stop him, but Morris was already
halfway down the street, and he went upstairs to the drawing-room. Morris
was altogether unlike himself; this discovery of Mills's treachery seemed
to have changed his nature. Violent and quick he always was, but to-night
he was suspicious, he seemed to distrust Mr. Taynton himself. And, a
thing which his host had never known him do before, he had drunk in that
half hour when they sat waiting, close on a bottle of port.

The evening paper lay ready cut for him in its accustomed place, but for
some five minutes Mr. Taynton did not appear to notice it, though evening
papers, on the money-market page, might contain news so frightfully
momentous to him. But something, this strangeness in Morris, no doubt,
and his general anxiety and suspense as to how this dreadful knot could
unravel itself, preoccupied him now, and even when he did take up the
paper and turn to the reports of Stock Exchange dealings, he was
conscious of no more than a sort of subaqueous thrill of satisfaction.
For Boston Copper had gone up nearly a point since the closing price of
last night.

It was not many minutes, however before Morris returned with matted and
streaming hair and drenched clothes.

"He has not come back," he said. "I went to his rooms and satisfied
myself of that, though I think they thought I was mad. I searched them
you understand; I insisted. I shall go round there again first thing
to-morrow morning, and if he is not there, I shall go up to find him in
town. I can't wait; I simply can't wait."

Mr. Taynton looked at him gravely, then nodded.