"If we can only interest Mary." There was a gleam of hope in the
thought. "She will be the saving of the situation. She spoiled me
thoroughly when I was a nipper." And buoyed with the recollection
of grim-visaged angular Mary, who hid a very tender heart beneath
a somewhat forbidding exterior, he overpaid the chauffeur
cheerfully.

There was an accumulation of letters waiting for him at the hotel,
but he shuffled them all into his overcoat pocket, with the
exception of one from Peters which he tore open and read
immediately, still standing in the lounge.

An hour later he set out on foot for the quiet hotel which had
been his aunt's resort since her student days, and where she was
waiting for him now, according to a telegram that he had received
on his arrival at Marseilles. The hall door of her private suite
was opened by the elderly maid, whose face lit up as she greeted
him.

"Miss Craven is waiting in the salon, sir. She has been tramping
the floor this hour or more, expecting you," she confided as she
preceded him down the corridor.

Miss Craven was standing in a characteristic attitude before an
open fireplace, her feet planted firmly on the hearthrug, her
short plump figure clothed in a grey coat and skirt of severe
masculine cut, her hands plunged deep into her jacket pockets, her
short curly grey hair considerably ruffled. She bore down on her
nephew with out-stretched hands.