That his sister and his daughter and possibly his servants were his dupes, and in no sense his accomplices, I was absolutely convinced. But dupes his sister and daughter could be no more. They, at least, knew something of the truth, if not the whole of it. Hence their letters to me; hence their endeavours to induce me to give up Dumpling hunting and detective work; and hence their disappearance. And now that I, too, knew the truth, later though my knowledge might be, I was confronted with the question, "How, in view of what you know, do you propose to act?" CHAPTER XXVI. "ONLY STARVING!" Given the fact that I had promised to refrain from further detective work, the fact that the two Miss Carletons had disappeared and had forbidden me to try to find or to follow them, "How did I now propose to act?" was the question before me. It was answered next morning as I sat at breakfast. Opening my newspaper, I read that, owing to the removal of the works of two of the greatest ship-building firms from Thames Side to the North, thousands of men had been thrown out of work, and the greatest destitution prevailed. "The condition of things in East London"--so it was stated in the newspaper--"is more terrible than has been known within the memory of anyone now alive, and it is no exaggeration to say that at this moment hundreds, if not thousands, of women and children are starving." Some instances which had come under the personal notice of the writer of the article were then given. Even to read them was painful; to try to realise them was heart-breaking. "This may, or may not, be a piece of newspaper exaggeration, for the purpose of sensationalism," I said; "but if the half of what this man says be true, what right have I to be sitting here before a comfortable breakfast while little children are crying vainly for bread?" I pushed my almost untasted breakfast away from me. I felt as if, with the wail of starving children in my ears, another mouthful of food would choke me.