"
They adjourn to the hostelry mentioned.
Over coffee and cigarettes, Vivie makes this appeal to Frank: "Now
Frank, you know all my story. Tell me first, what really became of
the real David Williams, the young man you met in the hospital and
wrote to me about?"
_Frank_: "'Pon my life I don't know. I never heard one word about
him after I got clear of the hospital myself. You know it fell into
Boer hands during that rising in Cape Colony. I expect the 'real'
David Williams, as you call him, died from neglected wounds or
typhoid--or recovered and took to drink, or went up country and got
knocked on the head by the natives for interfering with their
women--Good riddance of bad rubbish, I expect. What do you want me
to do? I'll swear to anything in reason."
_Vivie_: "I want you to do this. Run down one day before you go back
to Africa, to South Wales, to Pontystrad--It's not far from
Swansea--And call at the Vicarage on the pretext that you've come to
enquire about David Vavasour Williams whom you once knew in South
Africa. It'll give verisimilitude to my stories. They'll probably
say they haven't seen him for ever so long, but that you can hear of
him through Professor Rossiter. I dare say it's a silly idea of
mine, but what I fear sometimes--is that if the fact comes out that
_I_ was David Williams, some Vaughan or Price or other Williams may
call the old man's will in question and get it put into Chancery,
get the money taken away from poor old Bridget Evanwy and the
village hall which I've endowed.
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