“No,” said Hirst. “It is here.” He pointed to his breast.
“Thank God,” Hewet exclaimed. “I need no longer feel as though I’d murdered a child!”
“I should think you were always losing things,” Helen remarked, looking at him meditatively.
“I don’t lose things,” said Hewet. “I mislay them. That was the reason why Hirst refused to share a cabin with me on the voyage out.”
“You came out together?” Helen enquired.
“I propose that each member of this party now gives a short biographical sketch of himself or herself,” said Hirst, sitting upright. “Miss Vinrace, you come first; begin.”
Rachel stated that she was twenty-four years of age, the daughter of a ship-owner, that she had never been properly educated; played the piano, had no brothers or sisters, and lived at Richmond with aunts, her mother being dead.
“Next,” said Hirst, having taken in these facts; he pointed at Hewet. “I am the son of an English gentleman. I am twenty-seven,” Hewet began. “My father was a fox-hunting squire. He died when I was ten in the hunting field. I can remember his body coming home, on a shutter I suppose, just as I was going down to tea, and noticing that there was jam for tea, and wondering whether I should be allowed—”
“Yes; but keep to the facts,” Hirst put in.
“I was educated at Winchester and Cambridge, which I had to leave after a time. I have done a good many things since—”