4Miss Silver was reading a letter from her niece Ethel Burkett, the wife of a bank manager in the Midlands. The subject of the letter was a distressing one, the foolish and frivolous conduct of Ethel’s sister Gladys Robinson, who had taken the unjustifiable step of leaving an excellent husband whom she complained of finding dull.
‘As if anyone in their senses expects their husband to be exciting!’ wrote Mrs Burkett. ‘And she doesn’t say where she is, or what she is doing, so all we can hope and trust is that she is alone, and that she hasn’t done anything which Andrew would find it impossible to forgive. Because what is she going to live on!’ There was a good deal more in this strain.
Laying Ethel’s letter down on the left-hand side of her writing-table, Miss Silver addressed herself to
