the world but gentle birth and a lady’s education.  Alma was then a young girl of thirteen, and had been motherless for eight years.  Thus came Harvey’s opportunity.  Alma herself had already imparted to him all she knew:  that her mother was born in England, emigrated early with her parents to Australia, returned to London as a young woman, married, and died at twenty-seven.  To this story Mrs. Frothingham could add little, but the supplement proved interesting.  Bennet Frothingham spoke of his first marriage as a piece of folly; it resulted in unhappiness, yet, the widow was assured, with no glaring fault on either side.  Alma’s mother was handsome, and had some natural gifts, especially a good voice, which she tried to use in public, but without success.  Her education scarcely went beyond reading and writing.  She died suddenly, after an evening at the theatre, where, as usual, she had excited herself beyond measure.  Mrs Frothingham had seen an old report of the inquest that was held, the cause of death being given as cerebral haemorrhage.  In these details Harvey Rolfe found new matter for reflection.

Their conversation at breakfast this morning was interrupted by the arrival of letters; two of them particularly welcome, for they bore a colonial postmark.  Hugh Carnaby wrote to his friend from an out-of-the-way place in Tasmania; Sibyl wrote independently to Alma from Hobart.

‘Just as I expected,’ said Harvey, when he had glanced over a few lines.  ’He talks of coming home:  —­ “There seems no help for it.  Sibyl is much better in health since we left Queens land, but I see she would never settle out here.  She got to detest the people at Brisbane, and doesn’t like those at Hobart much better.  I have left her there whilst I’m doing a little roaming with a very decent fellow I have come across, Mackintosh by name.  He has been everywhere and done everything —­ not long ago was in the service of the Indo-European Telegraph Company at Tehran, and afterwards lived (this will interest you) at Badgered, where he got a date-boil, which marks his face and testifies to his veracity.  He has been trying to start a timber business here; says some of the hard woods would be just the thing for street paving.  But now his father’s death is taking him back home, and I shouldn’t wonder if we travel together.  One of his ideas is a bicycle factory; he seems to know all about it, and says it’ll be the most money-making business in England for years to come.  What do you think?  Does this offer a chance for me?"’

Harvey interrupted himself with a laugh.  Smelting of abandoned gold ores, by the method of the ingenious Dando, had absorbed some of Hugh’s capital, with very little result, and his other schemes for money-making were numerous.

’"The fact is, I must get money somehow.  Living has been expensive ever since we left England, and it’s madness to go on till one’s resources have practically run out.  And Sibyl must get home again; she’s wasting her life among these people.  How does she write to your wife?  I rather wish I could spy at the letters. (Of course, I don’t seriously mean that.) She bears it very well, and, if possible, I have a higher opinion of her than ever."’