"Did he write to anybody?"
"Not that I know of."
"Not to my mother?"
Lowndes leant forward across the compartment: there was a shrewd look in the spectacled eyes.
"Not that I know of," he said again, but with a different intonation. "I have often wondered!"
"Did you ask her?"
"Yes; she said not."
"Then what do you mean?" cried Harry indignantly. "Do you think my mother would tell you a lie?"
"Your mother is the most loyal little woman in England," was the reply. "I certainly think that she would keep her end up in the day of battle."
Harry ground his teeth. He could have struck the florid able face whose every look showed a calm assumption of his father's infamy.