t being a twin, still
less _his_ twin.'

'That would be the only way of accounting for it, certainly,' said
Merton. 'But what followed? Did they correspond?'

'He wrote to her, but she showed me the letter, and put it in the fire
unopened. He had written his name, Marmaduke Ingles, on a corner of the
envelope.'

'So far her conduct seems correct, even austere,' said Merton.

'It was at first, but then he wrote from South Africa, where he
volunteered as a doctor. He was a doctor at Tutbury.'

'She opened that letter?'

'Yes, and showed it to me. He kept on with his nonsense, asking her
never to forget him, and sending his photograph in cocky.'

'Pardon!' said Merton.

'In uniform. And if he fell, she would see his ghost, in cocky, crossing
her room, he said. In fact he knew how to get round the foolish girl. I
believe he went out there just to make himself interesting.'

'Did you try to find out what sort of character he had at home?'

'Yes, there was no harm in it, only he had no business to speak of,
everybody goes to Dr. Younghusband.'

'Then, really, if he is an honest young man, as he seems to be a
patriotic fellow, are you certain that you are wise in objecting?'

'I _do_ object,' said Mrs. Nicholson, and indeed her motives for refusing
her consent were only too obvious.

'Are they quite definitely engaged?' asked Merton.

'Yes they are now, by letter, and she says she will wait for him till I
die, or she is twenty-six, if I don't give my consent. He writes every
mail, from places with outlandish names, in Africa. And she keeps
looking in a glass ball, like the labourers' women, some of them; she's
sunk as low as _that_; so superstitious; and sometimes she tells me that
she sees what he is doing, and where he is; and now and then, when his
letters come, she shows me bits of them, to prove she was right. But
just as often she's wrong; only she won't listen to _me_. She says it's
Telly, Tellyopathy. I say it's flat nonsense.'

'I quite agree with you,' said Merton, with conviction. 'After all,
though, honest, as far as you hear. . . .'

'Oh yes, honest enough, but that's all,' interrupted Mrs. Nicholson, with
a hearty sneer.

'Though he bears a good character, from what you tell me he seems to be a
very silly young man.'

'Silly Johnny to silly Jenny,' put in Mrs. Nicholson.

'A pair with ideas so absurd could not possibly be happy.' Merton
reasoned. 'Why don't you take her int