to fear lest . . . sofa; lay there with his face . . . groaning. . . . From that time . . . strange personal dislike to you . . . till at last . . . almost madness . . . considering the state of his health . . . did not, then, think it advisable . . . and as soon as you were able to bear the . . . village in Derbyshire. Most of the rest you know already; for it has been your own life, I mean your education at Mr. Whittaker's and subsequently at Glastonbury with Dr. Craven. . . . Your father . . . while you were with Mr. Whittaker . . . died . . . Scotland . . . leaving his affairs in a . . . owing to his fatal confidence in. . . . It remains for me only to . . . ['What's this?'] . . . Late one bleak, windy night last March, about a fortnight after I had seen you, coming from my club in Waterloo Place . . . Regent's Street . . . lamp-post . . . unhappy woman pestered me, and . . . [A low cry smothered itself in my throat, my eyes growing to the paper.] I turned, saying, 'Here is some money for you. For heaven's sake, go home and . . . on such a night as this . . .' . . . then suddenly caught me by the arm, and cried out: 'Captain James, Captain James, don't you know me?—I'm Isabel Leicester.' I fell against the lamp-post, and almost . . . The apparently reliable news of her death, the . . . seemed like a horrible dream. At first I could not . . . then she told me that she had accidentally heard from a friend that he was dead, and had . . . and then asked about you. I answered nothing, for reasons which you will, I think, understand. But on her repeating her question, and adding that surely she had a right to know how you were, even if I refused to tell her where you were, I felt constrained to speak. I told her that you had been sent, first to a small school, and subsequently to a public school, where you had, I believed, done satisfactorily: and then proceeded to inform her of the events that had led up to your interview with myself about a fortnight ago, blaming myself as much as I justly considered I could, and you also in the same manner. She listened to me very quietly, and, when I had concluded, asked me if I had any idea where you had gone to? I answered that I had none. Then, as
