It was, therefore, considered necessary for the prosperous re-establishment of the bank to put forth a cautiously worded circular, in which Mr.Clifford's return was made the reason for the absence on a long journey of Roland Sefton, whose disappearance had to be accounted for.

By the time he was arrested and brought to trial the confidence of the bank's customers in its stability would in some measure be regained.
There was thus a good deal of conjecture and of contradictory opinion abroad in Riversborough concerning Roland Sefton, which continued to be the town's-talk for some weeks.

Even Madame began to believe in a half-bewildered manner that her son had gone on a journey of business connected with the bank, though she could not account for his total silence.

Sometimes she wondered if he and Felicita could have had some fatal quarrel, which had driven him away from home in a paroxysm of passionate disappointment and bitterness.

Felicita's coldness and indifference might have done it.