s been shut up with
that thing. Now let us get to business--show me the diary and the map."

"Dearest Alan," wrote Barbara from The Court two days later, "I have
been thinking everything over, and since you are so set upon it,
I suppose that you had better go. To me the whole adventure seems
perfectly mad, but at the same time I believe in our luck, or rather in
the Providence which watches over us, and I don't believe that you, or I
either, will come to any harm. If you stop here, you will only eat
your heart out and communication between us must become increasingly
difficult. My uncle is furious with you, and since he discovered that we
were talking over the telephone, to his own great inconvenience he has
had the wires cut outside the house. That horrid letter of his to
you saying that you had 'compromised' me in pursuance of a 'mercenary
scheme' is all part and parcel of the same thing. How are you to stop
here and submit to such insults? I went to see my friend the lawyer, and
he tells me that of course we can marry if we like, but in that case my
father's will, which he has consulted at Somerset House, is absolutely
definite, and if I do so in opposition to my uncle's wishes, I must lose
everything except L200 a year. Now I am no money-grubber, but I will not
give my uncle the satisfaction of robbing me of my fortune, which may
be useful to both of us by and by. The lawyer says also that he does not
think that the Court of Chancery would interfere, having no power to do
so as far as the will is concerned, and not being able to make a ward
of a person like myself who is over age and has the protection of the
common law of the country. So it seems to me that the only thing to do
is to be patient, and wait until time unties the knot.

"Meanwhile, if you can make some money in Africa, so much the better.
So go, Alan, go as soon as you like, for I do not wish to prolong this
agony, or to see you exposed daily to all you have to bear. Whenever you
return you will find me waiting for you, and if you do not return, still
I shall wait, as you in like circumstances will wait for me. But I think
you will return."

Then followed much that need not be written, and at the end a postscript
which ran:

"I am glad to hear that you have succeeded in shifting the mortgage on
Yarleys, although the interest is so high. Write to me whenever you get
a chance, to the care of the lawyer, for then the letters will reach me,
but never t