"What is it that troubles you, Mr. Stourbridge?" he asked.

Lucius looked utterly wretched. "Miriam—Mrs. Gardiner— has disappeared."

Monk was puzzled. "Mrs. Gardiner?"

Lucius shook himself impatiently. "Mrs. Gardiner is a widow. She is ..." He hesitated, a mixture of irritation and embarrassment in his face. "She is a few years older than I. It is of no consequence."

If a young woman fled her betrothal it was a purely private matter. If there was no crime involved, and no reason to suppose illness, then whether she returned or not was her decision. Monk would not ordinarily have involved himself. However, his own happiness was so sharp he felt an uncharacteristic sympathy for the anguished young man who sat on the chair opposite him so obviously at his wits’ end.

Monk could never before remember having felt that the world was so supremely right. Of course, this was midsummer 1860, and he had no memory, except in flashes, of anything at all before the coaching accident in 1856, from which he had woken in hospital with a mind completely blank. Even so, it was beyond his ability to imagine anything so complete as the well-being that filled him now.

After Hester had accepted his proposal of marriage he had been alternately elated and then beset by misgivings that such a step would destroy forever the unique trust they had built between them. Perhaps they could not satisfactorily be anything more than friends, colleagues in the fierce pursuit of justice. He had spent many bleak nights awake, cold with the fear of losing something which seemed more and more precious with every additional thought of no longer possessing it.

But as it happened, every fear had vanished like a shadow before the rising sun over the great sweeping hills they had walked together. Even though he had discovered in her all the warmth and passion he could have wished, she was still as perfectly willing and capable of quarreling with him as always, of being perverse, of laughing at him, and of making silly mistakes herself. Not a great deal had changed, except that now there was a physical intimacy of a sweetness he could not have dreamed, and it was the deeper for having been so long in the discovery.

So he did not dismiss Lucius Stourbridge as his better judgment might dictate.

"Perhaps you had better tell me precisely what happened," he said gently.

Lucius took a gulp of air. "Yes." Deliberately, he steadied himself. "Yes, of course. Naturally. I’m sorry, I seem to be a little incoherent. This has all struck me ... very hard. I don’t know what to think."

So much was quite apparent, and Monk with difficulty forbore from saying so. He was not naturally tolerant. "If you would begin by telling me when you last saw Miss—Mrs. Gardiner, that would be a place from which to proceed," he suggested.

"Of course," Lucius agreed. "We live in Cleveland Square, in Bayswater, not far from Kensington Gardens. We were having a small party in celebration of our forthcoming marriage. It was a beautiful day, and we were playing a game of croquet, when quite suddenly, and for no apparent reason, Miriam—Mrs. Gardiner—became extremely distraught and rushed from the garden. I did not see her go, or I would have gone after her—to find out if she was ill or if I could help..."