Barry Eric Odell Pain (1864-1928) was an English journalist, poet, and writer best known for his ghost and horror stories.

\"The Missing Years\" is the haunting tale of Sylvia Hetheril, who goes out to post letters one day and fails to return. All enquiries and advertisements fail to trace her, and eventually her family are forced to abandon the search.

On the same day that Sylvia Hetheril disappears, a mysterious woman named Sylvia arrives at a remote house near the coast. She is suffering from amnesia and remembers nothing about her past, her family or where she came from. She only knows that she is needed at this house...and indeed her arrival saves a man\'s life.

Two years later Sylvia Hetheril\'s brother, Charles, receives a letter from his missing sister, announcing that she is about to re-enter their lives. Her return is perhaps even stranger than her disappearance.