‘That is almost impossible,’ Eleanor interrupted. ‘You have really no conception how fond she is of show and display, and I know no such fear would prevent her indulging her fancy, if she had the means to do so.’ ‘So long as you are really persuaded that is the case, we have one difficulty out of the way,’ Felix continued. ‘Then we can take it for granted that she neither has the money nor has the slightest idea where it is.—Now, tell me about this Margaret Boulton.’ ‘That is soon told,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Last night, shortly alter eleven, I was crossing Waterloo Bridge’—— ‘Bad neighbourhood for a lady to be alone,’ interrupted Felix, with a reproachful glance at Seaton.—‘I beg your pardon. Go on, please.’ ‘I had missed my husband at Waterloo Station, and I was hurrying home as quickly as I could’—— ‘Why did you not take a cab?’ exclaimed Felix with some asperity. Then seeing Eleanor colour, he said hastily: ‘What a dolt I am! I—I am very sorry. Please, go on.’ ‘As I was saying,’ continued Eleanor, ‘just as I was crossing the bridge, I saw a woman close by me climb on to one of the buttresses. I don’t remember much about it, for it was over in less than a minute, and seems like a dream now; but it was my old nurse, or rather companion, Margaret Boulton, strange as it seems. Now, you know quite as much as I can tell you.’ Felix mused for a time over this strange history. He could not shake off the feeling that it was more than a mere coincidence. ‘Seriously,’ he said, ‘I feel something will come of this.’ ‘I hope so,’ answered Eleanor with a little sigh. ‘Things certainly look a little better now than they did; but we need some permanent benefit sadly.’ ‘I thought some day had come, mamma,’ piped little Nelly from her nest on the hearthrug. ‘Little pitchers have long ears,’ said the novelist. ‘Come and sit on poor old Uncle Jasper’s knee, Nelly, and give him a kiss.’ ‘Yes, I will, Uncle Jasper; but I’m not a little pitcher, and I’ve not dot long ears.—Mamma, are my ears long?’ ‘No, darling,’ replied her mother with a smile. ‘Uncle Felix was not speaking of you.’ ‘Then I will sit upon his knee.’ Whereupon she climbed up on to that lofty perch, and proceeded to draw invidious distinctions between Mr Felix’ moustache and the hirsute appendage of her father, a mode of criticism which gave the good-natured literary celebrity huge delight. ‘Now,’ continued Felix, when he had placed the little lady entirely to her satisfaction—‘now to resume. In the first place, I should particularly like to see this Margaret Boulton to-day.’ ‘I do not quite agree with you, Mr Felix. It would be cruel, with her nerves in such a state, to cross-examine her to-day,’ Mrs Seaton said with womanly consideration. ‘You can have no idea what such a reaction means.’