I own I held hard and / bitter thoughts against you, but now I feel that your / love for your country has shown me what you / are, and I am ready to acknowledge your wife and child, and / to see them, should they ever come to England. By / gones shall be bygones now. I am making a new will / in your favour, and shall put it in a place where it / is sure to be found, so that should we / both die, they will be provided for. / "If this surmise is correct," continued Captain Harper, "and there really was a new will, it may possibly be hidden somewhere at the Hall." "We've searched everywhere," said Pamela sadly. "Two lawyer's clerks have been here and gone through every morsel of paper in the house, and turned out every drawer and cupboard. I think myself that perhaps Uncle Fritz may have found it and destroyed it. Mother and I spend all our spare time looking, but we never have any luck. I don't think we're lucky people. We seem just to have misfortune after misfortune. It has always been like this all our lives." "Cheer up! It's a long lane that has no turning," comforted Captain Harper. "I advise you to show this paper to your solicitor, though I'm afraid it's nothing to go by." Pamela's affairs did indeed seem to have reached a crisis. Her fortunes were much discussed in the neighbourhood, and general opinion decided that she would have difficulty in establishing legally her right to what undoubtedly ought to be hers. Several naturalized German relations of Mr. Hockheimer had put in counter-claims for the estate. There was likely to be a long and expensive lawsuit before the case was settled. Then one day a wonderful thing occurred--an utterly unexpected and marvellous thing, but one that--thank God!--has happened in other families since the war began. The postwoman who delivered the letter did not know that it differed from other letters; she popped it through the slit in the front door and rang the bell as usual, and went on her way, all unsuspecting what news she had left behind her. Yet when Mrs. Reynolds saw the handwriting on the envelope she gave a little sharp cry and fainted away. Pamela did not go to school that day nor the next. She wrote to Avelyn to explain her absence. The latter read the letter twice before her amazed brain could really grasp its contents. "MY DEAR AVE, "I hardly know how to tell you our good luck. Daddy is alive! He wasn't killed at Mons after all. He was taken prisoner and never reported. He was kept most fearfully strictly in a fortress and allowed no news of the outside world. He and a companion spent eighteen months making a tunnel out of their cell, and after simply thrilling adventures they escaped, and swam a river and got into Swiss territory. He's coming home, and Mother and I are going up to London to meet him. We're almost off our heads!