One lovely morning in early May, after a whole long Sunday spent with Nan, the visitor had been first abroad before breakfast, and by merest chance had met the postman at the gate. Without an evil thought, Ralph had taken the letters from him, only to behold one from Denis to Nan on top of the pile. He stood where he was until the postman's steps rang away into silence along the hard highway. It was Denis's writing, without a doubt: the superscription on the fraudulent parcel was written indelibly in Ralph's brain; this letter was directed in the same hand; it bore the new Ballarat postmark; and until the sight of it Ralph had almost forgotten there was such a place, or such a person as Denis Dent. He had been equally absorbed in town and in the country. The cloud of war had obscured the past; the sun of love had blinded him to its consequences. Even the soul-destroying thought of the packet he had posted--the packet with which Jewson had obviously tampered--the packet on whose changed contents he himself was trading every day--even the thought of that had quite ceased to bother Ralph. He was not a man of much imagination. Dent and Jewson were at the opposite end of the world, a hundred days' sail at a flattering average; what was the use of bothering about Jewson or Dent? Yet on Jewson he had been relying more than he knew until this moment. The dirty work had been left in Jewson's hands; but until now, when he saw an important branch of it neglected, Devenish had not chosen to realize what the dirty work would be. Here was a letter from Denis to Nan. It should never have been allowed to reach the post. Jewson was not to be trusted after all. Standing there in the fresh May sunshine, his ears filled with the morning song of birds, his nostrils with the thousand scents of the countryside, Ralph Devenish, annoyed and nonplused as he well might be, was still a comparatively honest man. A certain element of self-deception lingered in his dishonour. At the worst he had been a passive traitor to this point: nor was the next step downward taken in cold blood. A window opened behind his back, and Nan's voice hailed him from her room. "Anything for me, Ralph?" He wheeled about, but approached the house slowly, shuffling the pack on his way. "I'm afraid not; but there's one for me." And he pocketed her letter under her eyes. "A bothersome one?" she asked, looking down from her window upon his bent head and rounded shoulders. "I'm afraid so, Nan." He had not looked up. "But you didn't open it, did you?" "No--that's why!" he cried grimly; and pleased with his own readiness he could look up now and meet her eyes. "They sha'n't badger me down here," said Ralph. "It can keep until I get back to town."