My dearest Lizzie,

Of course you'll say I've been neglecting you, my sweet. Or will you think me downright lazy? "Where is the letter he promised?" you wonder, and a frown wrinkles that beautiful brow of yours!

But that is nothing compared to the astonishment with which you will read the address from which I write. Greystones! What can your very own Charles be doing as assistant in a reformatory for wayward young women? For, alas, I am only the assistant here. It is "Miss Martinet," as the girls call her, who rules the establishment.

Let me explain, my love. On that dreary day of our separation, when your family escorted you from our last rendezvous at the Grosvenor Hotel to the boat-train at Victoria, I was at my wits' end. Bereft of you, and well-nigh penniless, I went back to my rooms in Jennyn Street, paid off the cabbie, and mounted the stairs. I mixed a hock and seltzer, lit a cheroot, and pondered on the beastliness of life. So lost in gloom was I that I did not for a time notice the envelope which the porter had laid upon the table. It bore the Imprint of the family lawyers, Raven and Raven, of Gray's Inn Walk.

My first reaction, you may imagine, was to think that it must be a communication from the father who, far from acknowledging me, never had the courtesy to marry my mother. What the deuce, I thought, can the old skinflint want of me now? Ain't he cut me off without a sou already? And ain't that the worst a cove can do to his own flesh and blood?

Had the day been colder and the fire lit, I should have tossed the envelope into its flames. Yet, as it lay there, nothing was to be lost by looking over the contents.

What do you think, Lizzie? It was from old Silas Raven himself, in his crabbed lawyer's script! He presented his compliments to me-the first time the old devil had ever done so-and begged my attendance at his chambers at my earliest convenience. There, he promised, I should learn something to my advantage.