You may be sure that when he returned he took every imaginable pains to obtain a safe place of concealment before he began his work; my own opinion is that I am more likely to find him living quietly in a suburban cottage than in a London slum." Millicent was now thoroughly interested in the search.

"It seems a great business, Mark, but going into it as thoroughly as you are doing I feel sure that you will succeed.

I only wish that I could help you; but I could not do that, could I ?" she asked wistfully.
He saw that she was in earnest, and suppressed all semblance of a smile.
"I am afraid, dear, that you would be a much greater source of embarrassment than of assistance to me," he said gravely.

"This is essentially not a woman's work.

I believe that women are sometimes employed in the detection of what we may call domestic crimes, but this is a different matter altogether." "I suppose so," she sighed; "but it will be very hard to be taking our ease down at Weymouth while we know that you are, day after day, wearing yourself out in tramping about making inquiries." "It will be no more fatiguing than tramping through the stubble round Crowswood after partridges, which I should probably be doing now if I were down there.