" This cryptic remark might mean that
further enlightenment was to be sought in the enclosures.
Spence picked up the second letter. It was addressed to Dr. Herbert
Farr at Vancouver, and was merely a formal notice from a firm of
English solicitors--post-marked London--a well-known firm, probably,
from the address on their letterhead.
"Dr. Herbert Farr,
Vancouver, B. C. Dear Sir:
As executors in the estate of Mrs. Henry Strangeways we beg to
inform you that the allowance paid to you for the maintenance of
Miss Desire Farr is hereby discontinued. This action is taken under
the terms of our late clients will,--whereby such allowance ceases
upon the marriage of the said Desire Farr or her voluntary removal
from your roof and care.
Obediently yours,
Hervey & Ellis."
The professor whistled. Here was enlightenment indeed! A very
sufficient explanation of the old man's grim determination to block
any self-dependence on desire's part which would mean "removal from"
his "care." Here was someone paying a steady (and perhaps a fat)
allowance for the young girl's maintenance--someone of whom she
herself had certainly never heard and of whose bounty she remained
completely ignorant. It was easy enough now to follow Li Ho's
reasoning. If it was for this allowance, and this alone, that the
old doctor had kept Desire with him, long after her presence had
become a matter of indifference or even of distaste, the ending of
the allowance meant also the ending of his tolerance.
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