“Oh, bosh!” I exclaimed, impatiently. “This is nonsense and you know it, Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at me like that. What else are we to do?” Another shake of the head. “I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU think we should do?” “I don't know.” With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's “heir” what to do. Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what George, the waiter, thought of us. At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the street below. “You'd better get on your things,” I said. “It is time for us to go.” Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me. “Don't be cross, Hosy,” she pleaded. “I've been thinkin' it over all night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right. She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around, if anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up.” “Then you agree that we should tell her the truth.” “Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have.” It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been more emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of action. Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider. Right was right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable business as quickly as I could. Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the afternoon. I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps and the still dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together upon the steps and I rang the bell. Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety, excitement and overdone politeness.