CHAPTER XIX
THE UNEXPECTED
The major’s letter did nothing, however, to lighten the gloom. On the contrary, it only increased it tenfold. The main substance of it was in this paragraph:
It’s singular how much you can dig out about a subject, once you put your mind to it. I thought at first that I had told you all that was known about Jack Carringford and his affairs—all that could be discovered. But the deeper I go into it, the more I seem to unearth. Yesterday another friend to whom I had written, on the off-chance of getting a little information (but from whom I really didn’t expect much) sent me this bit of news. It seems he heard it said that after Carringford went back to England he married again, and it is thought that he did not live very long after,—died suddenly of pneumonia, or
