“Revenge! His is a legacy of hate, like most other benefactions in the Hume-Frazer family. The next move rests with him. I wonder what it will be!”
[Chapter XXVIII]
Mr. and Mrs. Jiro
Chance, at times, tangles the threads on which human lives depend, and creates such a net of knots and meshes that intelligent foresight is rendered powerless, and plans that ought to succeed are doomed to utter failure.
It was so during the three days succeeding Capella’s return from Italy. Reviewing events in the lights of accomplished facts, Brett subsequently saw many opportunities where his intervention would have altered the fortunes of the men and women in whom he had become so interested.
Although he endeavoured to keep control of circumstances, it was impossible to predict with certainty the manner in which the fifth act of this tragedy in real life would unfold itself.
Would he have ordered things differently had he possessed the power? He never knew. It was a question he refused to discuss with Winter long after everybody was comfortably married or buried, as the case might be.
To divide labour and responsibility, he apportioned Ooma and his surroundings to Winter, Capella to Holden. The strict supervision maintained over the Jiro family was relaxed. Brett proposed dealing with them summarily and in person.
Holden had barely concluded his remarkable narrative when Hume’s reply came from Whitby, giving the address of the hotel where Fergusson resided.