"Is he really ill, do you think, papa?" she asked, somewhat anxiously;
"or is he only--well--only frightened?"

Mr. Clifford stared at her with a blank leathery face of self-satisfied
incomprehension.

"Frightened!" he repeated solemnly; "Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve
frightened! And of Granville Kelmscott, too! That's true wit, Elma;
the juxtaposition of the incongruous. Why, what on earth has the
man got to be frightened of, I should like to know? ... No, no;
he's really ill; very seriously ill. Humphreys says the case is a
most peculiar one, and he's telegraphed up to town for a specialist
to come down this afternoon and consult with him."

And indeed, Sir Gilbert was really very ill. This unexpected shock
had wholly unmanned him. To say the truth, the judge had begun to
look upon Guy Waring as practically lost, and upon the matter of
Montague Nevitt's death as closed for ever. Waring, no doubt, had
gone to Africa--under a false name--and proceeded to the diamond
fields direct, where he had probably been killed in a lucky quarrel
with some brother digger, or stuck through with an assegai by some
enterprising Zulu; and nobody had even taken the trouble to mention
it.

It's so easy for a man to get lost in the crowd in the Dark Continent!
Why, there was Granville Kelmscott, even--a young fellow of means,
and the heir of Tilgate, about whom Gwendoline was always moaning
and groaning, poor girl, and wouldn't be comforted--there was
Granville Kelmscott gone out to Africa, and, hi, presto, disappeared