shed letter to him might be. Whatever her faults she had
been a great lady to her finger-tips. He remembered her, as he had
been wont to see her, showing her pictures and gardens to the foreign
royalties who came to see her, or receiving Her Majesty when she drove
over from Windsor and called upon her. Only Jane could ever fill her
place adequately; Jane with her short skirts and graceful, swinging
walk, and her queer plain hats that so perfectly became her, and made
country neighbours look overdressed. He loved to remember her in a
hundred different ways--in white satin, with a string of pearls about
her neck; at meets, on one of her sixteen-hand hunters; playing golf;
painting the rabbit-hutch in the garden; binding up Toffy's hand that
morning, ages ago, when he had had a spill out of his motor-car;
playing with the school-children on the lawn; or, best of all, perhaps,
dancing in the great ballroom at Bowshott, and sitting with him
afterwards in the dimness of his mother's tapestried chamber, her great
white feather fan laid upon her knees.

'Is the man married?' asked Peter, with a drawl.

'He is married,' Purvis said, as the two horses swung together in their
easy stride.

'Wife alive?' Peter slowed down and lighted a cigarette with
deliberation.

'That is a part of the story which I cannot at present divulge,' said
Purvis.

'It sounds mysterious!' said Peter, sending his horse into a canter
again.

'If it were written in a romance it would hardly be believed,' said the
other.

'You were going to ask me some questions,' said Peter, as though to put
an end to any dissertation on the romantic side of the story. 'It is a
business matter,' he said, 'and we had better be businesslike about it.
We can unfold the romance of it later.'

'That is my wish,' said Purvis gravely.

Peter began to tell himself that he was treating the man badly. He had
nothing to gain beyond a little money for his services, and so far he
had behaved well and with tact. He was obviously disinterested,
although perhaps the bill for pursuing his investigations might be
fairly high.

'I have reason to believe that the identity of the man can be proved,'
said Purvis; 'but I am not going to risk finding a mare's nest, as I
have told you.'

'I am not much help to you,' said Peter. 'I have never set eyes oh my
brother since I was two years old.'

'This is his photograph,' said Purvis, producing a coloured photograph
from his