"'Did you see her first or did she see you?' asked Matilda.
"'A week ago last Tuesday,' my brother repeated.
"'And did you speak to her?'
"'Not at the time I didn't. No.'
"'Did she speak to you?'
"'No.'
"'Then 'ow d'you know it was our Fanny?' asked Prue, who had been listening intently.
"'I thought she'd gone to 'er fate in some foreign country—being so near Boulogne,' my mother said. 'I thought them White Slave Traders 'ad the decency to carry a girl off right away from 'er 'ome.... Fanny! On the streets of London! Near 'ere. I told 'er what it would come to. Time and again I told 'er. Merry an 'onest man I said, but she was greedy and 'eadstrong.... 'Eadstrong and vain.... She didn't try to follow you, Ernie, to find out where we were or anything like that?'
"My brother Ernest's face displayed his profound perplexity. 'It wasn't at all like that, mother,' he said. 'It wasn't—that sort of thing. You see——'
"He began a struggle with the breast pocket of his very tightly fitting leather jacket and at last produced a rather soiled letter. He held it in his hand, neither attempting to read it nor offering it to us. But holding it in his hand seemed to crystallise his very rudimentary narrative powers. 'I better tell you right from the beginning,' he said. 'It isn't at all what you'd suppose. Tuesday week it was; last Tuesday week.'