"Yes; I have heard from several friends in Central America who had seen the news in Spanish papers."
"Excellent! Then it is most essential that the notice of this postponement be made at once. If you will allow me, I will take it with me to Chicago this afternoon; and if it meets the eye of the person I hope, then I trust soon to be able to introduce to you your last Wednesday's visitor."
"Without—Iris?" Pierce asked nervously.
"Believe me, I will do everything in my power to spare Miss Pierce the experience you seem so unwilling she should undergo. But if it proves to be the only means of solving this case, you must trust me to the extent of letting me make the attempt." He glanced at his watch. "I can catch a train for Chicago in fifteen minutes, and it will be the quickest way to get this notice in the papers. I will let you hear from me again as soon as necessary. I can find my own way out."
He turned sharply to the door, and, as Pierce made no effort to detain him, he left the study.
The surprising news of the sudden "indefinite postponement" of the romantic wedding of Dr. Pierce, the Central American archæologist, to the ward whom he had brought from Honduras as a child, was made in the last editions of the Chicago evening papers which reached Lake Forest that night; and it was repeated with fuller comments in both the morning and afternoon papers of the next day. But to Pierce's increasing anxiety he heard nothing from Trant until
