a pear, Everard,' she suggested, and accordingly I took one.
'Uncle has just started out with Auntie in the motor-car,' she
continued, 'so I want you to begin at the beginning and tell us
everything, you know--just everything.'

I looked at Dick, who was pinching an orange so as to make a hole in it
to suck the juice, but he did not speak; so, having eaten a preserved
apricot, I sat down next to Jacintha, wishing she had not so hastily
drawn away her white skirt, and began.

I cannot accuse myself of speaking a word that was not true that
afternoon, but it must be confessed that the chief object was to impress
Dick with the conviction that I was not what he might easily take me to
be. Accordingly, I glossed over the character of Aunt Marion's
household, and dwelt upon the wealth and importance of Captain Knowlton.
I brought tears to Jacintha's eyes when I told her of the loss of the
_Seagull_, of his death and the difference in my treatment at the hands
of Mr. Turton; but what seemed to have the greatest effect on her
brother was the story of my encounter with the tramp who stole my money,
and the other events of my journey.

'Still,' he said, being the first to speak when I ended the story, 'I
don't see what you are going to do when you get to London.'

'Neither do I,' cried Jacintha.

'Oh, I shall do something right enough,' I answered with all the
confidence I could assume.

'I tell you what I believe,' said Dick. 'I believe Captain Knowlton is
not dead after all. You see if I am not right. You don't know really
that he was drowned.'

'If he were not,' I answered, 'he would have sent a telegram, because he
would know the _Seagull_ had been reported lost.'

'Still, you cannot tell,' Dick insisted, 'and if I were you, as soon as
I got to London, I should go to his rooms in the Albany.'

But this was a point I had already considered.

'You see,' I said, 'very likely Mr. Turton has been there and told them
to keep me----'

'I did not think of that,' Dick admitted. 'Still, I don't see what you
will do in London. And, of course, I live there, though I'm going to a
crammer's at Richmond next term.'

'Everard was going to be sent to Sandhurst, too,' said Jacintha quietly.

'What a lark,' he exclaimed, 'if Captain Knowlton should turn up, and
you should be there at the same time.'

But this was more than my imagination at the moment was capable of. I
felt very, very far from going to Sandhurst, and, indeed,