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‘But she thought—she had been deceived!’ Joyce listened with her head drooping, keeping down the climbing sorrow in her throat, hardly able to find her voice.

‘She was always hasty,’ he said. ‘I am not the one to blame her—oh no, no—it was not wonderful, perhaps, that she should believe. And letters to India were not then as now—they took so long a time; and something happened to delay the answer. It was what you call nobody’s fault—only an accident—an accident that cost——’

‘You are very, very kind—oh, you are kind; you speak as if you had felt for her with all your heart—as if she had been your very own.’

He gave her a startled look, and made a momentary pause: then he proceeded, ‘That’s all,—all that anybody has known. She disappeared. His letter came back to him. He could not get home to search for her. It had to be trusted to others. After years, when I came back, I—I—but nothing could ever be found.’

‘Sir,’ said Joyce, gasping a little to keep down her sobs, ‘I think that must have been my mother. I—think it must be. She begins in her letter to tell him—she calls him Henry—was that his name?’