Certainly she felt no delicacy or compunction in asking Jefferson to do her this service.

The letters belonged to her father and they were being wrongfully withheld with the deliberate purpose of doing him an injury.

She had a moral if not a legal right to recover the letters in any way that she could.
She was so deeply engrossed in her thoughts that she had not noticed a hansom cab which suddenly drew up with a jerk at the curb opposite her bench.

A man jumped out.

It was Jefferson.
"Hello, Shirley," he cried gaily; "who would have expected to find you rusticating on a bench here?
I pictured you grinding away at home doing literary stunts for the governor." He grinned and then added: "Come for a drive.