Mrs. Goldring greeted her visitor with an interrogative "Well?" which Mrs. Samptor was keenly conscious of being more direct than polite, but she felt that the item of news which she was bursting to tell was so important that she could afford to echo "Well!" in a key which foretold possibilities. "You will be surprised to see me here, Mrs. Goldring, instead of meeting me on my own lawn, but I saw I had a clear half-hour and thought it my duty to share my news with you. It may avoid complications later, as you will understand when you hear it." The Judge's wife inwardly wished that her neighbour would not always be so long in coming to the point, but felt on the whole relieved that this time she did not appear in her frequent rôle of a borrower. "Murder will out, as I often say to Samptor--very appropriate to a jailer, isn't it now? Well, the fact is I've had a letter from an acquaintance who has just got back to Madras by the _Bokhara_. Mr. Mark Cheveril, our new Assistant-Collector, you know, was a fellow-passenger. Perfectly charming she says he is, but--oh dear, what do you think? Mrs. Pate had it from a man on board, who had it from Cheveril himself. He's a half-caste! Though one would never guess it from his appearance, she says, and the astonishing thing is that he isn't the least ashamed of the fact; but Mrs. Pate confesses he never alluded to the flaw in her hearing. Now, isn't this a great shock?" Mrs. Samptor glanced keenly at her neighbour, divining that the coming of an eligible young man must have raised a flutter of hope in her maternal heart. "Don't worry, Mrs. Samptor," said that lady, after a moment's pause. "We shan't have the half-caste--as you call him--among us long. The Collector will soon shake him off." "That's the very plank I cling to as might a drowning man, but Samptor's not so sure. One can never reckon on what Mr. Worsley may do! But I still cling to the hope. Look how he got rid of young Printer! There are ways and means of doing it even in the Service, though what ailed him at Printer I never could make out--most affable, I thought him. And though the Collector never said a word against him to anybody as far as I know, I felt in my bones he couldn't abide the man, and sure enough he was transferred. And I hear there were others before we came that he couldn't hit it off with. A man of strong prejudices and weak will, the doctor says he is--in confidence, of course. But he's a bit of a 'griffin' yet is Dr. Campbell, though he's a dear, and so is his wife. However, this news doesn't matter to me personally," continued the visitor, rolling her eyes on Mrs. Goldring, who was not altogether able to conceal her annoyance, much as she desired to do so. "You see I haven't any marriageable daughter with seasons passing over her head! I declare, one sometimes is made thankful for what is often foolishly regarded as a privation," she added with a sigh.