for future perusal. Next, she tackled the local letters. One was
embossed with the Bank of Leichardt's Land stamp and contained a
cablegram originally despatched from Rome, which had been received at
Vancouver and, thence, had pursued her--first along the route
originally designed, afterwards, with zigzagging, retrogression and
much delay, along the one she had taken. That it had reached her at
all, said a good deal for Mrs Gildea's fame as a freely paragraphed
newspaper correspondent.

The telegram was phrased thus:

SORRY IMPOSSIBLE NO FUNDS OTHER REASONS WRITING BIDDY

Mrs Gildea's illuminative 'H'm!' implied that her two inductions had
been correct. No funds--and other reasons--meaning--a MAN. She
scented instantly another of Biddy's tempestuous love-affairs. Had it
been merely a question of lack of money with inclination goading, she
felt pretty certain that Lady Bridget would have contrived to beg,
borrow or steal--on a hazardous promissory note, after the
happy-go-lucky financial morals of that section of society to which by
birth she belonged. Or, failing these means, that she would have
threatened some mad enterprise and so have frightened her aunt Eliza
Countess of Gaverick into writing a cheque for three figures. Of
course, less would have been of no account.

Mrs Gildea opened the two envelopes and sorted the pages in order of
their dates. The first had the address of a house in South Belgravia,
where lived Sir Luke Tallant of the Colonial Office and Rosamond his
wife--distant connections of the Gavericks.