I had said good-bye, and she had accompanied me across the hall to the fine stone steps leading from the hospital--she had, in fact, turned towards her own apartments--when I felt I _must_ ask her one more question, so I also turned, and hurried back to her. "Did your brother Frank ever tell you of a letter he received from me in Oxford?" I asked. "Oh yes," she answered, without a touch of embarrassment. Then I continued: "I never heard from him about it. I told him he need not write at the time, but I have been afraid he was hurt or annoyed, and thought it an impertinence on my part perhaps." "Did Frank never write?" she asked, with genuine astonishment. "I know he intended to do so. Certainly he was not annoyed in any way. Far from it. He was intensely interested, and _I have the best of reasons for knowing that that message from our mother made a very great difference in his life_." I thanked her for these words, without asking anything further. As I have said, it was no affair of mine, from first to last; but the verification, after such a lapse of time, was doubly satisfactory to me. Again I ask: How about the "_Cui Bono_" argument? * * * * * Another shake of the kaleidoscope, and I find myself at Wimbledon, staying with a friend--now, alas! passed away--who had then a pretty house not far from the Common, and with whom I often spent a few days when in London. On this occasion she had asked some friends to meet me at tea, amongst them Mrs Alfred Wedgwood, to whom I had introduced her some years previously, and my friends "V. C. Desertis" and his wife. A Miss Farquhar, whom I knew very slightly, was sharing a sofa with me, she sitting at one end and I at the other, leaving a vacant space between us. Mrs Wedgwood was talking to Mr Desertis at the moment, but suddenly looked across the room at our sofa, and began describing very graphically an old man of benevolent aspect sitting between Miss Farquhar and myself, leaning on a stick, and wearing a soft felt hat. "He has long hair, almost down to his coat collar, and he looks such a dear, kind old man!" Mrs Wedgwood said; then turning round, she added: "Surely some of you must recognise him! he is so very clear and distinct in his whole personality." Mrs Desertis whispered something to her husband, who asked at once if the old gentleman's hair was very white. "Yes; quite white," said Mrs Wedgwood hopefully. "And curly and long?" "Yes; curly and quite long, reaching to his collar," continued Mrs Wedgwood, still more confidently. But our hopes were dashed when Mr Desertis turned round drily to his wife: "Then it cannot possibly be my father, as you suggested. His hair was white, but _quite short_." It was a cruel blow! But Mrs Wedgwood still affirmed that she had never seen anyone more distinctly, whether we recognised him or not.