“There’s nothing wonderful about this, Mrs. Bird,” he said. “I have seen the same thing with variations dozens of times in my twenty years of experience. It’s no use your starting off to call this man a scoundrel and a brute. It’s fashionable, I know, but it does not follow that it is accurate: you see it is just possible that the girl may have been to blame herself, poor dear. However, she is in a mess, and the thing is to get her out of it, at the expense of the man if necessary, for we are interested in her and not in him. That letter of hers is a beautiful production in a queer kind of way, and ought to have an effect on the individual, if he is not already married, or a bad lot both of which things are probable. I tell you what, I will make a few inquiries about him, and let you know my opinion to-morrow. What did you say his name was? Henry Graves? Thanks; good-bye. No, no opiate to-night, I think.” On the following day the doctor returned, and having visited Joan and reported favourably of her progress, he descended to the front parlour, where Mrs. Bird was waiting for him. “She’s getting on well,” he said—“a good deal better than I expected, indeed. Well, I have looked up Sir Henry Graves, for he’s a baronet. As it chanced, I came across a man at the hospital last night who used to stay with his father down at Rosham. The old man, Sir Reginald, died a few months ago; and Henry, the second son—for his elder brother broke his neck in a steeplechase—succeeded him. He is, or was, a captain in the Navy, rather a distinguished man in a small way; and not long ago he met with an accident, broke his leg or something of that sort, and was laid up at an inn in a place called Bradmouth. It seems that he is a good sort of fellow, though rather taciturn. That’s all I could find out about him.” “Joan comes from Bradmouth, and she lived in an inn there,” answered Mrs. Bird. “Oh! did she? Well, then there you have the whole thing; nothing could be more natural and proper, or rather improper.” “Perhaps so, sir,” said Mrs. Bird reprovingly; “though, begging your pardon, I cannot see that this is a matter to joke about. What I want to know now is shall I send the gentleman that letter?” The doctor rubbed his nose reflectively and answered, “If you do he will probably put it at the back of the fire; but so far as I can judge, being of course totally unacquainted with the details, it can’t hurt anybody much, and it may have a good effect. _She_ has forgotten that she ever wrote it, and you may be sure that unless he acts on it he won’t show it about the neighbourhood. Yes, on the whole I think that you may as well send it, though I dare say that it will put him in a tight place.” “That is where I should like to see him,” she answered, pursing up her lips.