"Remember, please, not to address me as Jenny Regan, but as Hester Storm."
"Jenny Regan! Hester Storm!" he reflected. "Strange! What can that girl be doing with two names?"
Then Horatio blew out the candle.
CHAPTER XX
THE REVEREND HORATIO TURNS DETECTIVE
The first thing in the curate's thoughts the next morning was this perplexing fragment of a letter. He examined it carefully, reading, first, the words in An Petronia's childish scrawl written on what had been the blank side of a castaway sheet:
chapter nine
reginals mother died six months before he was born and ever since Mr peabody had injoyed very dilicat health.
Horatio smiled at this tragically complicated picture of Reginald's entrance upon the scene of life. Then he turned the sheet and studied what was left of the original letter, a letter evidently written by his protégée, Hester Storm. Lengthwise and crosswise of this sheet ran sharp creases where the letter had been folded, and on either side the edges were torn symmetrically, leaving half-finished words and sentences. About half the letter was missing.
The letter began, "Dearest sist—" and five lines farther down the curate came upon "darling Rosalie." Then, after broken lines in which he made out "pull off something," there were six complete lines on what had been the last pages, that read: