"Look here, you chaps, I could go on listening till midnight, but what's the matter with a bit of dinner? I dare say Praddy's parlour-maid might turn sour if we asked her at a moment's notice to find dinner for three. Why not come out and dine with me at the Hans Crescent Hotel? Close by. I'll get a quiet table and we can finish our talk there. To-morrow I must go down to Margate to see the dear old mater, and it may be a week before I'm up again."
They adjourn to the hostelry mentioned.
Over coffee and cigarettes, Vivie makes this appeal to Frank: "Now Frank, you know all my story. Tell me first, what really became of the real David Williams, the young man you met in the hospital and wrote to me about?"
Frank: "'Pon my life I don't know. I never heard one word about him after I got clear of the hospital myself. You know it fell into Boer hands during that rising in Cape Colony. I expect the 'real' David Williams, as you call him, died from neglected wounds or typhoid—or recovered and took to drink, or went up country and got knocked on the head by the natives for interfering with their women—Good riddance of bad rubbish, I expect. What do you want me to do? I'll swear to anything in reason."
Vivie: "I want you to do this. Run down one day before you go back to Africa, to South Wales, to Pontystrad—It's not far from Swansea—And call at the Vicarage on the pretext that you've come to enquire about David Vavasour Williams whom you once knew in South Africa. It'll give verisimilitude to my stories. They'll probably say they haven't seen him for ever so long, but that you can hear of him through Professor Rossiter. I dare say it's a silly idea of mine, but what I fear sometimes—is that if the fact comes out that I was David Williams, some Vaughan or Price or other Williams may call the old man's will in question and get it put into Chancery, get the money taken away from poor old Bridget Evanwy and the village hall which I've endowed. That's all. If it wasn't that I've disposed of my supposed father's money in the way I think he would have liked best, I shouldn't care a hang if they found out the trick I'd played on the Benchers. D'you see?"
Frank: "I see."
The next day Vivie wisely spent in bed, healing her wounds and resting her limbs which after the mental excitement was over ached horribly. Honoria came round and listened, applauded, pitied, laughed and concurred.
But she was well enough on the following Tuesday after Black Friday to attend another meeting of the W.S.P.U. at Caxton Hall, to hear one more ambiguous, tricky, many-ways-to-be-interpreted promise of the then Prime Minister. Mrs. Pankhurst pointing out the vagueness of these assurances announced her intention then and there of going round to Downing Street to ask for a more definite wording. Vivie and many others followed this dauntless lady. Their visit was unexpected, the police force was small and the Suffragettes had two of the Cabinet Ministers at their mercy. They contented themselves by shaking, hustling, frightening but not otherwise injuring their victims before the latter were rescued and put into taxi-cabs.