“I remembered how Lewis Elliot (I wonder where he is now—­it is ages since I heard of him) used to tell us about a little town on the Tweed called Priorsford.  It was his own little town, his birthplace and I thought the name sung itself like a song.  I made inquiries about rooms and found that in a little house called Hillview, owned by one Bella Bathgate, I might lodge.  I liked the name of the house and its owner, and I hope to find in Priorsford peace and great content.

“Having been more or less of a fool for forty years, I am now going to try to get understanding.  It won’t be easy, for we are told that ’it cannot be gotten with gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof....  No mention shall be made of coral and pearls:  for the price of wisdom is above rubies.’

“I am going to walk on the hills all day, and in the evening I shall read the Book of Job and Shakespeare and Sir Walter.

“In one of the Jungle Books there was a man called Sir Purun Dass—­do you remember?  Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., who left all his honours and slipped out one day to the sun-baked highway with nothing but an ochre-coloured garment and a beggar’s bowl.  I always envied that man.  Not that I could rise to such Oriental heights.  The beggar’s bowl wouldn’t do for me.  I cling to my comforts:  also, I am sure Sir Purun Dass left himself no loophole whereby he might slip back to his official position whereas I-----Well, the Politician thinks I have gone for a three months’ rest cure, and at sixty one is not impatient.  You will say, ‘How like Pam!’ Yes, isn’t it?  I always was given to leaving myself loopholes; but, all the same, I am not going to face an old age bolstered up by bridge and cosmetics.  There must be other props, and I mean to find them.  I mean to possess my soul.  I’m not all froth, but, if I am, Priorsford will reveal it.  I feel that there will be something very revealing about Miss Bella Bathgate.

“Poor Biddy, to have such an effusion hurled at you!

“But you’ll admit I don’t often mention my soul.

“I doubt if you will be able to read this letter.  If you can make it out, forgive it being so full of myself.  The next will be full of quite other things.  All my love, Biddy.—­Yours, PAM.”

* * * * *

Three hours later the express stopped at the junction.  The train was waiting on the branch line that terminated at Priorsford, and after a breathless rush over a high bridge in the dark Pamela and her maid, Mawson, found themselves bestowed in an empty carriage by a fatherly porter.

Mawson was not a real lady’s maid:  one realised that at once.  She had been a housemaid for some years in the house in Grosvenor Street, and Pamela, when her own most superior maid flatly refused to accompany her on this expedition, had asked Mawson to be her maid, and Mawson had gladly accepted the offer.  She was a middle-aged woman with a small brown face, an obvious toupee, and an adventurous spirit.