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 mail, and it brought a letter from his brother, the lad who had had the sense to find a jewel behind a tobacconist’s counter, and had trusted it to him.

The letter was long and ineffective. It was the postscript that was vital.

“I say, I wonder whether you’ve seen anything of Susannah? What a young fool I was ever to think I could be happy with a girl out of a shop. I’ve met the real and only one now—she’s a nurse; her father was a clergyman in Northumberland. She’s such a bright little thing, and she’s never cared for any one before me. Wish me luck.”

John Selborne almost tore his hair.

“Well, I can’t save him across half the world! Besides”

At thirty-seven one should have outgrown the wild impulses of youth. He said this to himself, but all the same it was the next train to Yalding that he took.

Fate was kind; at Yalding it had almost always been kind. The glow of red firelight shone out over the snow through the French window among the brown jasmine stalks.

Mrs Sheepmarsh was out, Miss Sheepmarsh was at home. Would he step this way?