“Well, Dr. Cumberledge,” she said, when she saw me alone, “I was right!  I have found out a fact or two about Daphne’s rival!”

“You have seen her?” I asked.

“Seen her?  I have stopped for a week in the same house.  A very nice lodging-house on the Spa front, too.  The girl’s well enough off.  The poverty plea fails.  She goes about in good rooms and carries a mother with her.”

“That’s well,” I answered.  “That looks all right.”

“Oh, yes, she’s quite presentable:  has the manners of a lady whenever she chooses.  But the chief point is this:  she laid her letters every day on the table in the passage outside her door for post—­laid them all in a row, so that when one claimed one’s own one couldn’t help seeing them.”

“Well, that was open and aboveboard,” I continued, beginning to fear we had hastily misjudged Miss Sissie Montague.

“Very open—­too much so, in fact; for I was obliged to note the fact that she wrote two letters regularly every day of her life—­ ‘to my two mashes,’ she explained one afternoon to a young man who was with her as she laid them on the table.  One of them was always addressed to Cecil Holsworthy, Esq.”

“And the other?”

“Wasn’t.”

“Did you note the name?” I asked, interested.

“Yes; here it is.”  She handed me a slip of paper.

I read it:  “Reginald Nettlecraft, Esq., 427, Staples Inn, London.”

“What, Reggie Nettlecraft!” I cried, amused.  “Why, he was a very little boy at Charterhouse when I was a big one; he afterwards went to Oxford, and got sent down from Christ Church for the part he took in burning a Greek bust in Tom Quad—­an antique Greek bust—­ after a bump supper.”

“Just the sort of man I should have expected,” Hilda answered, with a suppressed smile.  “I have a sort of inkling that Miss Montague likes him best; he is nearer her type; but she thinks Cecil Holsworthy the better match.  Has Mr. Nettlecraft money?”

“Not a penny, I should say.  An allowance from his father, perhaps, who is a Lincolnshire parson; but otherwise, nothing.”

“Then, in my opinion, the young lady is playing for Mr. Holsworthy’s money; failing which, she will decline upon Mr. Nettlecraft’s heart.”

We talked it all over.  In the end I said abruptly:  “Nurse Wade, you have seen Miss Montague, or whatever she calls herself.  I have not.  I won’t condemn her unheard.  I have half a mind to run down one day next week to Scarborough and have a look at her.”

“Do.  That will suffice.  You can judge then for yourself whether or not I am mistaken.”

I went; and what is more, I heard Miss Sissie sing at her hall—­a pretty domestic song, most childish and charming.  She impressed me not unfavourably, in spite of what Hilda said.  Her peach-blossom cheek might have been art, but looked like nature.  She had an open face, a baby smile and there was a frank girlishness about her dress and manner that took my fancy.  “After all,” I thought to myself, “even Hilda Wade is fallible.”