Chapter 24

On Tuesday afternoon a badly shaken, exceedingly frightened young man called at Campbell Pope's boarding-house.

"Good Lord, Bob! Been on another bat?" cried Pope, at sight of his caller. Wharton took a fleeting glance at himself in a mirror and nodded, noting for the first time the sacks beneath his eyes, the haggard lines from nostrils to lip-corners.

"I'm all in. Lorelei's quit me," he said, dully.

"Quit you!" Pope frowned. "Tell me about it."

"Well, I climbed the vine again and fell off. She packed up-- disappeared--been gone since Saturday night, and I can't find her. Nobody seems to know where she is. I came up for air Sunday, but ... I'm hard hit, Pope. I'm ready to quit the game if I can't find her; me for a sea-foam pillow, sure. Oh, I'm not kidding--I'll start walking from here toward Jersey. ... God! I keep thinking that maybe SHE took the river. You see, I'm all gone." He sank into a chair, twitching and trembling in a nervous collapse.

"Better have a drink," Pope suggested; but Bob returned roughly:

"That's what broke up the sketch. I got stewed at Fennellcourt-- high-hat week-end party--fast crowd, and the usual trimmings. Never again! That is, if I find my wife."

"Fennellcourt! Suppose you tell me all about it. If there's a chance that it's suicide--" Pope's reportorial instinct brought the last word into juxtaposition with "Fennellcourt," and he saw black head-lines.

"Judge for yourself. Maybe you can help me; nobody else can." Bob recounted the story of the house-party; how he and Lorelei had met Bert Hayman; how, once in the company of his old friends, he had succumbed to his weakness, and how he had caroused most of Saturday night. He told Pope that he could remember little of Sunday's occurrences, having been plunged in an alcoholic stupor so benumbing that not until late that evening had he fully grasped the fact that Lorelei had gone. Even then he was too befuddled to act. Neither Mrs. Fennell nor her husband could give him any help, and Bert Hayman, who had been with Lorelei all Saturday evening, had no explanation to give of her departure. Bob remembered in passing that Bert had been confined to his room all day Sunday as the result of a fall or an accident of some sort. Monday morning, while still suffering from the effects of his spree, Bob had returned to the city to find his home deserted, and for twenty- four sleepless hours now he had been hunting for his wife. He had called up Lorelei's family, but they could give him no clue; nor could he find trace of her in any other quarter. So, as a last resort before calling in the police, he had come to Pope. When he had finished his somewhat muddled tale he stared at the critic with a look of dumb appeal.

Campbell began in a matter-of-fact, positive tone. "She's altogether