“I will be with you in a second, my dearest,” he answered. “I have something to do for Thalia first.”

He ran down the stairs saying as he did so,

“Tell Hannah to get your mother into the carriage. You wait here!”

A few minutes passed and then for the second time that day Thalia put one thousand pounds into an envelope.

As she did so, she thought of something else.

She picked up one of her own books, which were still lying on the dressing table and opened it to write inside,

“To a gentleman who is kind, gentle and understanding and very very wonderful and whom I will never forget,

Thalia.”

She put it with the Bearer Bond into an envelope and addressed it to the Earl of Hellington.

As her father and Hannah tucked her mother up into the big comfortable carriage drawn by four horses that was waiting for them on the road by the side of the Market, Thalia ran to the nearest butcher.

“Good evening, Miss Carver,” he said. “You’re later than usual!”

“I want you to do me a great favour,” Thalia said. “Will you send your son, or someone trustworthy, with this letter to the Earl of Hellington in Berkeley Square?”

“Yes, of course, Miss Carver,” the butcher agreed. “It’ll be no trouble, no trouble at all!”

“You will ensure that it is delivered safely?”

“You need have no fears on that score. It’ll be in his Lordship’s hands within ten minutes of your givin’ it to me.”

“Thank you very much,” Thalia said, “and thank you as well for all your kindness to me and my mother since we have been living in the Market.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yes – we are leaving,” Thalia answered him. “We are – going home!”

Chapter Seven

The Earl walked into the coffee room at White’s and threw himself down in a chair beside Richard.

One glance at his friend’s face was enough to tell Richard that he had been unsuccessful in his search.

“Will you have a drink?” Richard enquired.

The Earl hesitated as if it was difficult to concentrate on the question.

Then he replied,

“Order me a brandy.”

The Steward took the order and Richard asked in a low voice,

“No luck?”

“None at all,” the Earl replied.

As he spoke, he was thinking despairingly that it was now ten days since Thalia had disappeared.

He thought that he had known from the moment he received the one thousand pound Bearer Bond and read the inscription in her book that she was determined never to see him again.

“Whom I will never forget.”

He was sure that the words were written on his heart and would haunt him all his life.

“It seems extraordinary that anybody can disappear so completely!” Richard exclaimed.