Hartley put down his cup on the table.

"The boy has disappeared," he said, talking with interest, for the
subject filled his mind.

"But when, and how? I saw him quite lately."

Hartley's round, China-blue eyes fixed upon her.

"Can you tell me when you saw him?"

"One night--evening, I should say--I was out riding and I passed him
going towards the wharf, not towards the wharf exactly, but to the
houses that lie out by the end of the tram lines."

"What evening? I wish you could remember for me."

"It was the night of my own dinner-party."

"Then that was July the twenty-ninth?"

Mrs. Wilder looked at him, and bit her lip.

"Was it the twenty-ninth?" Hartley repeated the question.

"Probably it was, if you say so. I told you just now that I had Burma
head. But where has Absalom gone to?"

Hartley took up his cup again and stirred the spoon round and round.