The Mission of Poubalov

"I am delighted to hear it," said Shaughnessy; "health, Miss Hilman, is the greatest pr-rop in time of trouble. Have you any obser-rvation to make upon Mr. Strobel's absence? Any theor-ry to account for it?"

"No theory, Mr. Shaughnessy, though I hope to have one some time later in the day. I should like to have you tell your readers that I have absolute faith in Mr. Strobel, and that I expect any theory as to his disappearance to accord with honorable conduct on his part."

"Yes, yes," said the reporter, scribbling away for dear life, that he might not lose a word of this important utterance. "Do I understand you to say that you expect to have news of your – Mr. Strobel before the day is over?"

"I shall devote all my time to searching for him."

"Clara!" exclaimed Louise, while Mr. Pembroke turned away with a despairing shrug.

Shaughnessy looked doubtingly at Mr. Pembroke, and then said:

"May I have the honor of calling on you later, then?"

"I shall be glad at any time," replied Clara, "to give you any information in my power."

Shaughnessy made a note.

"I hope you will pardon me seeming imper-rtinence, Miss Hilman," he continued, "but me city editor commanded me to obtain photographs of yourself and Mr. Strobel."

Louise sighed and looked genuinely alarmed; but Clara thought a moment, and answered that she would loan the reporter pictures if he would be sure to return them uninjured.

"I shall be sure to do so," he answered, "and I commend your decision. It saves me a lot of trouble, for, of course, I must obey me city editor; he's a tyrant, Miss Hilman, and if you did not give me the pictures, I should have to get them elsewhere."

Clara smiled as she left the room to get the photographs, and when she had given them to Shaughnessy he took his departure, promising to call again.

"How could you give him the pictures, Clara?" asked Louise reproachfully.

"Mine will do no harm," answered Clara, quietly; "didn't you hear him say he was bound to get it anyway? Moreover, it may help in discovering Ivan, if only they will print a good likeness of him."

Clara was right in one respect at least. Nearly every evening paper published pictures of herself and Ivan, and nobody at the Pembroke house could have told where the originals were obtained.

"Now I must keep my word and begin the search," said Clara after the reporter had gone.

"You're not going to leave the house, I hope?" exclaimed her uncle.

"Certainly, uncle," she replied; "I feel quite well, and I will not overtax myself. I can stand anything better than staying idle here."

"I am strongly disposed to forbid you," said Mr. Pembroke, anxiously; "you are sure to have a most disagreeable and painful experience."

"Please don't go!" cried Louise, who had read the paper that Mr. Pembroke had concealed.

"I am sorry to displease you both," returned Clara, "but if I am forbidden to go I shall have to disobey."

"Then Louise must go with you," said her uncle.

"I should like to have her. Will you, Lou, dear?"

Louise was only too anxious to accompany her cousin, and accordingly they left the house together just in time to escape a squad of reporters representing the other evening papers. Clara had arranged her programme the night before, and left word at the house for Ralph and Paul, should they come in her absence, to go to Ivan's room. Mrs. White had seen Clara on the few occasions when Mr. Strobel had served afternoon tea to his intended and other friends, and she fell into a great flurry of agitation when she recognized her at the door.

"Come in," she stammered as she led the way; "of course I am glad to see you, for I am certain you cannot believe it."

Louise tried to check the landlady from making the inevitable revelation, but Clara laid one hand on her cousin's arm and asked:

"Believe what, Mrs. White?"'

"Why, what's in the paper," replied the landlady; "you've read the papers, I suppose? I presumed that was why you came."

"I read the papers," said Clara, "and I came to inquire about Ivan. Do you refer to the suggested irregularities in his accounts? Of course I do not believe anything of that kind."

"Dear, no! I didn't suppose you did. I meant about my daughter Lizzie."

"Your daughter!" exclaimed Clara in a low voice, while Louise hid her face in her hands. "What do you mean? Let me see the paper."

More agitated than ever, Mrs. White produced a copy of the paper that Mr. Pembroke had withheld from his niece.

"I must have overlooked this," said Clara, wonderingly, as she saw that the account differed in style from those she had read. The reporter of this paper, sharper than his rivals, had somehow discovered that Lizzie White had left her home, and he set forth the circumstances with every delicate turn that language would allow to suggest a connection between her flight and Ivan's disappearance.

"It is shrewdly suspected by the friends of Strobel," so the story ran, "that as the time of his marriage approached, he found his fancy for Miss White stronger than his love for Miss Hilman, and that he chose elopement with the former as less dishonorable than marriage with the latter."

The writer then proceeded to an elaborate explanation of how Strobel might himself have arranged the wheel of his coupé so that it would fall off, and how he might then, by previous understanding with the second cabman, who was also conveniently missing, have been driven to the Park Square railroad station, where he waited for Miss White. It was entirely possible that they might have taken the one o'clock train for New York, if not the noon train.

Clara was very pale when she laid the paper down, but her faith in Ivan was not so much as touched by doubt.

"It's an outrage," she said quietly.

"I knew you wouldn't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. White.

"Believe it! of course it isn't true! It's not possible!"

There was a ring at the door just then, and Mrs. White excused herself to answer it.

She opened upon Ivan's mysterious visitor, Alexander Poubalov.

CHAPTER V.

THE AGENT OF THE CZAR

"Good-morning," said Poubalov, gutturally; "this is Madame White, I believe?"

"Yes, sir," replied the landlady, impressed at once by the stranger's deferential manner, and believing that through him the mystery would be cleared away; "won't you come in?"

"Thank you, yes. I have called to inquire for my friend Strobel."

"You are not the first, sir," said Mrs. White, opening the door to the sitting-room. "There are two here now who will be glad to see you. Miss Hilman, this is the gentleman who called on Mr. Strobel yesterday morning. Miss Hilman was to have married him, you know, and this is Miss Pembroke," and having thus awkwardly initiated a new scene, Mrs. White took refuge in the nearest chair.

Poubalov was as near to showing surprise as he ever permitted himself to come, and Clara, rising impulsively, went directly to him and said:

"Then you can tell me something about Mr. Strobel, can you not?"