"Certainly."
"Then I wish you would get me some paper and envelopes. I have a note to write. There is a child in the village I am fond of. She comes and sits in the tangle at the bottom of the Jessops' garden and talks to me. I am afraid she thinks more of my chocolates than me, but that is a detail."
"You want to write the child a note. How sweet of you!"
"Oh, no," Mrs. May said. She was going to embark on a dangerous effort and was not quite certain as yet. But desperate diseases require desperate remedies. "It is nothing. And I don't want anybody to know."
"I am sure you can trust to me."
"Of course I can, my dear child. And I will. Please get me the materials."
Vera brought the paper and essentials. With a smile on her face Mrs. May wrote the letter. Inside the envelope she placed something she had taken from the bosom of her dress.
"A cake of chocolate," she explained smilingly. "See, I do not address the envelope, but place on it this funny sign that looks like an intoxicated problem in Euclid. The child will understand. And now I am going to ask you to do me a favor. Will you please take the letter without letting anybody know what you are doing, and put it at the foot of the big elder in the tangle? I dare say it sounds very stupid of me, but I don't want the child to be disappointed."
Vera professed herself ready and also to be charmed with the idea. She would go at once, she said, and Mrs. May raised no obstacle. At the end of the corridor Vera was confronted with her uncle Ralph. He held out his hand.
"I was listening," he said. "I knew beyond all doubt that something of the kind would be attempted. I want that letter."