CHAPTER 5.
Colin McKeith had been gone some time and Mrs Gildea, primed with fresh ideas, had finished her article on the lines he suggested, before she again tackled Lady Bridget's love-affair.
The second letter (there is no need to reproduce the page of daring sentiment that closed the first) was dated from Castle Gaverick in South Connemara, and plunged straight into the tragic culmination.
'It's all over, Joan--was over soon after my last letter, but I've been too wretched ever since to write.

If you had been in England you might have read in one of last week's "MORNING POST'S" that a marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place between Mr Willoughby Maule, formerly confidential adviser to His Highness the Rajah of Kasalpore--and Evelyn Mary, only daughter of the late John Bagallay, Esq, and the late Mrs Bagally of Bagallay Court, Birmingham.
Rosamond tells me that Luke told her that Evelyn Mary has been throwing herself at Will's head ever since they met last year on a P.& O.
steamer between Singapore and Colombo.

She and her chaperon went on a tour round the world, it seems, just before Evelyn Mary came of age.

I wonder they did not get engaged then, and can only conclude--as there was no ME then to upset the apple-cart--that he did not know how rich she was going to be.

Anyway, I feel certain that it was Evelyn Mary who was at the back of his plan for settling down as a respectable stock-jobber.