was better than seeing her day by day lose all respect for me. My
miserable pittance dies with me and she is absolutely unprovided
for. My family cast off me and all my works many years ago, but I
put my pride in my pocket and appealed for help for Gillian and
they suggested--a damned charitable institution! I was pretty
nearly desperate until I thought of you. I know no one else. For
God's sake, Barry, don't fail me. I can and I do trust Gillian to
you. I have made you her guardian, it is all legally arranged and
my lawyer in London has the papers. He is a well-known man and
emanates respectability--my last claim to decency! Gillian is at
the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris. My only consolation is
that you are so rich that financially she will be no embarrassment
to you. I realize what I am asking and the enormity of it, but I
am a dying man and my excuse is--Gillian. Oh, man, be good to my
little girl. I always hoped that something would turn up, but it
didn't! Perhaps I never went to look for it, _quien sabe?_ I
shall never have the chance again...."

The signature was barely recognisable, the final letter
terminating in a wandering line as if the pen had dropped from
nerveless fingers.

Craven stared at the loose sheets in his hands for some time in
horrified dismay, at first hardly comprehending, then as the full
significance of John Locke's dying bequest dawned on him he flung
them down and, walking to the edge of the verandah, looked over
the harbour, tugging his moustache and scowling in utter
perplexity. A child--a girl child! How could he with his soiled
hands assume the guardianship of a child? He smiled bitterly at
the irony of it. Providence was dealing hard with the child in the