.

And of course they would be.

Poor girl! But what could they have done even if they had been prepared to raise objections.

The person in the frock-coat had the father's note; he had shown it to Fyne.

Just a request to take care of the girl--as her nearest relative--without any explanation or a single allusion to the financial catastrophe, its tone strangely detached and in its very silence on the point giving occasion to think that the writer was not uneasy as to the child's future.
Probably it was that very idea which had set the cousin so readily in motion.