Vivie:  “Oh, they ache rather, but it is such joy to have such friends as you and Praddy and Michael Rossiter, that I don’t mind what I go through...”

Frank:  “But I say, Viv, about this Rossiter man.  He seems awfully gone on you...?”

Vivie (flushing in the firelight):  “Does he?  It’s only friendship.  I really don’t see them often but he came to my assistance once at a critical time.  And now that Praddy’s all-powerful parlour-maid’s definitely left us, I will tell you my story.”

So she does, between five and half-past six, almost without interruption from the spell-bound Frank—­who says it licks any novel he ever read, and she ought to turn it into a novel—­with a happy ending—­or from Praed who is at times a little somnolent.  Then at half-past six, the practical Frank says: 

“Look here, you chaps, I could go on listening till midnight, but what’s the matter with a bit of dinner?  I dare say Praddy’s parlour-maid might turn sour if we asked her at a moment’s notice to find dinner for three.  Why not come out and dine with me at the Hans Crescent Hotel?  Close by.  I’ll get a quiet table and we can finish our talk there.  To-morrow I must go down to Margate to see the dear old mater, and it may be a week before I’m up again.”

They adjourn to the hostelry mentioned.

Over coffee and cigarettes, Vivie makes this appeal to Frank:  “Now Frank, you know all my story.  Tell me first, what really became of the real David Williams, the young man you met in the hospital and wrote to me about?”

Frank:  “’Pon my life I don’t know.  I never heard one word about him after I got clear of the hospital myself.  You know it fell into Boer hands during that rising in Cape Colony.  I expect the ‘real’ David Williams, as you call him, died from neglected wounds or typhoid—­or recovered and took to drink, or went up country and got knocked on the head by the natives for interfering with their women—­Good riddance of bad rubbish, I expect.  What do you want me to do?  I’ll swear to anything in reason.”

Vivie:  “I want you to do this.  Run down one day before you go back to Africa, to South Wales, to Pontystrad—­It’s not far from Swansea—­And call at the Vicarage on the pretext that you’ve come to enquire about David Vavasour Williams whom you once knew in South Africa.  It’ll give verisimilitude to my stories.  They’ll probably say they haven’t seen him for ever so long, but that you can hear of him through Professor Rossiter.  I dare say it’s a silly idea of mine, but what I fear sometimes—­is that if the fact comes out that I was David Williams, some Vaughan or Price or other Williams may call the old man’s will in question and get it put into Chancery, get the money taken away from poor old Bridget Evanwy and the village hall which I’ve endowed.  That’s all.  If it wasn’t that I’ve disposed of my supposed father’s money in the way I think he would have liked best, I shouldn’t care a hang if they found out the trick I’d played on the Benchers.  D’you see?”