continued Philip, ‘came from an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there’d have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.’

‘But was there really any ground,’ I brought out with difficulty, while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through my inmost being.

Philip winked meaningly. ‘There was. There’s no hiding those things; for all that your father was careful this time – but there, you see, he’d, for instance, to hire a carriage or something � no getting on without servants, either.’

I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I did not sob, I did not give myself up to despair; I did not ask myself when and how this had happened; I