Turning to Polly’s scrawl (which contrasted so strongly with Mrs. Clover’s neat, clear hand), Gammon discovered the passage which had disturbed his correspondent.  “You mustn’t expect me to go into black for your husband, for uncle I won’t call him.  I heard about him coming to you for money and then taking his hook because detectives was after him.  A nice sort of man.  It’s a pity he had to be buried at the bottom of the sea, where you can’t put up a monniment to him, as I’m sure you would like to do.  So this is all I have to say, and I shall not trouble you again.”

Here was no puzzle for Gammon, who had approved Greenacre’s scheme for finally getting rid of Mr. Clover.  But Polly’s letter began with an announcement which occasioned him the greatest surprise he had known since the identification of Clover with Lord Polperro.  So completely did it engross and confuse his mind that not until some quarter of an hour elapsed could he think about the passage quoted above.  “I write to inform you,” began Miss Sparkes, without any introductory phrase, “that I am going to be married to a gentleman who has a high place at Swettenham’s, the big tea merchants, and his name is Mr. Parish.  He has won the missing word, which is five hundred and fifty pounds, and which, every penny of it, he will spend on furniture at one of the best places.  You shall have one of our cards when we send them out, though I cannot say you have behaved accordingly.  The reason I do not invite you to the wedding is because Mr. Parish’s friends are very particular.”

After reading these remarkable lines again and again Mr. Gammon was much disposed to shout; but something restrained him.  He felt, perhaps, that shouting would be inadequate or even inappropriate.  When his first emotions subsided he went quietly forth from the house (it was evening) and took a walk about the adjacent streets, stopping at a stationer’s to purchase note-paper.  Returned to his room he gently whistled an old-fashioned melody; his face passed from grave thoughtfulness to a merry smile.  Before going to bed he meant to write a letter, but there was no hurry; two hours had to pass before the midnight collection.

The letter was brief, lucid, sensible.  He explained to Mrs. Clover that the painfulness and difficulty of her situation since Lord Polperro’s death had impelled him to a strange, but harmless and justifiable, expedient for putting her affairs in order.  He made known the nature of the artifice, which, “for several reasons,” he had tried in the first instance upon Polly Sparkes, with complete success.  If Mrs. Clover took his advice she would straightway go into moderate mourning and let it be known that her husband was dead.  Reserve as to details would seem strange to no one; ordinary acquaintances might be told that Mr. Clover had died abroad, friends and relatives that he had died at sea.  He hoped she would not be offended by what he had done, as it relieved her from a wretched burden of secrecy, and greatly improved the position of her daughter, Miss Minnie.  She need not reply to this letter unless she liked, and he would make an opportunity of calling upon her before very long.