No, though there was not the slightest trace of robbers or
intruders, neither was there the slightest trace of the beautiful
plague-patient. Everything in the house was precisely as it
always was, but the silver shining vision was gone.




CHAPTER III.

THE COURT PAGE


The search was given over at last in despair, and the doctor took
his hat and disappeared. Sir Norman and Ormiston stopped in the
lower hall and looked at each other in mute amaze.

"What can it all mean?" asked Ormiston, appealing more to society
at large than to his bewildered companion.

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Sir Norman, distractedly;
"only I am pretty certain, if I don't find her, I shall do
something so desperate that the plague will be a trifle compared
to it!"

"It seems almost impossible that she can have been carried off -
doesn't it?"

"If she has!" exclaimed Sir Norman, "and I find out the abductor,