the next is this:  I’d rather like to have some news about my people, and for them to know (if they want to know—­I leave that to you) that I’m getting on all right.  I haven’t heard a word about them since August.  I know nothing particular can have happened, because I always look at the papers—­but I should like to know what’s going on generally.

“I think that’s about all.  I am getting on excellently myself,
and hope you are.  I am afraid there’s no chance of my coming to
you for Christmas.  I suppose you’ll be home again by now.

“Ever yours,
“F.G.”

“P.S.—­Of course you’ll keep all this private—­as well as where
I’m living.”

Now this letter seems to me rather interesting from a psychological point of view.  It is extremely business-like, but perfectly unpractical.  Frank states what he wants, but he wants an absurd impossibility.  I like Jack Kirkby very much, but I cannot picture him as likely to be successful in helping to restore a strayed girl to her people.  I suppose Frank’s only excuse is that he did not know whom else to write to.

It is rather interesting, too, to notice his desire to know what is going on at his home; it seems as if he must have had, some faint inkling that something important was about to happen, and this is interesting in view of what now followed immediately.

He directed his letter, stamped it, and posted it in the library post-box in the vestibule.  Then, cap in hand, he pushed open the swing-doors and ran straight into Mr. Parham-Carter.

“Hullo!” said that clergyman—­and went a little white.

“Hullo!” said Frank; and then:  “What’s the matter?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to the jam factory.”

“May I walk with you?”

“Certainly, if you don’t mind my eating as I go along.”

The clergyman turned with him and went beside him in silence, as Frank, drawing out of his side-pocket a large hunch of bread and cheese, wrapped up in the advertisement sheet of the Daily Mail, began to fill his mouth.

“I want to know if you’ve had any news from home.”

Frank turned to him slightly.

“No,” he said sharply, after a pause.

Mr. Parham-Carter licked his lips.

“Well—­no, it isn’t bad news; but I wondered whether—­”

“What is it?”

“Your governor’s married again.  It happened yesterday.  I thought perhaps you didn’t know.”

There was dead silence for an instant.

“No, I didn’t know,” said Frank.  “Who’s he married?”

“Somebody I never heard of.  I wondered whether you knew her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Wait a second,” said the other, plunging under his greatcoat to get at his waistcoat pocket.  “I’ve got the paragraph here.  I cut it out of the Morning Post.  I only saw it half an hour ago.  I was coming round to you this evening.”