"Don't, Meg; sometimes I find myself wishing something of the kind, and I know it's wrong and
horrible. I want as far as I can to keep in the right with regard to Hugo, to give him no grievance against me. I've written to that bank where he left the money, and asked them to forward the letters if he has left any address. I've told him exactly where we are and what we propose to do. Beyond the bare facts of Fay's death—I told him all about her illness as dispassionately as I could—I've never reproached him or said anything cruel. You see, the man is down and out; though Mr. Ledgard always declared he had any amount of mysterious wires to pull. Yet, I can't help wondering whether he is ill somewhere, with no money and no friends, in some dreadful native quarter."
"What about the money in the bank, then? Did you use it?"
Jan blushed. "No, I couldn't bear to touch his money ... Mr. Ledgard said it was idiotic...."
"So it was; it was Fay's money, not his. For all your good sense, Jan, sometimes you're sentimental as a schoolgirl."
"I daresay it was stupid, and I didn't dare to tell Mr. Ledgard I'd left it," Jan said humbly; "but I felt that perhaps that money might help him if things got very desperate; I left it in his name and a letter telling him I had done so ... I didn't give him any money...."
"It was precisely the same thing."
"And he may never have got the letter."
"I hope he hasn't."
"Oh, Meg, I do so hate uncertainty. I'd