“Oh, my dear Cecil,” wrote Mrs Anstruther, “we have had such a delightful surprise. Your friend Dr Egerton came to see us yesterday, and we talked about you for hours and hours. Your father and I are greatly pleased with him, and the little children love him already. He is staying at the Imperial Hotel, and his aunt is there too, but she has not her health here, and I don’t think this place suits her. They seem very well off, and Fitz says that one of the boys at the school told him that Dr Egerton has really an immensity of money, for it has been accumulating for him ever since he has been in the East. But, dear childie, why don’t you write to him? Indeed, indeed, I think you are not treating him well. He says he has never had one single line from you, though he has written to you every week. It is not kind of you, and we were so greatly astonished to hear it that we couldn’t think of any excuses for you. Sure the poor boy”--these four words were scratched out, for Mrs Anstruther flattered herself that both her literary style and her accent were extremely English--“Poor Dr Egerton is deeply in love with you, but he said himself he could not understand it. Indeed he was in a great state lest something had happened to you, but we were able to reassure him about that----” Cecil read thus far, and then looked up with a horrified face. “Lady Haigh!” she gasped, “every one of my letters has missed, as well as Charlie’s. What can it be?” “Impossible, my dear!” cried Lady Haigh, briskly. “You must have mistaken what he says. Is his letter from home?” “It isn’t from him even now,” said Cecil. “It’s from Mrs Anstruther. There must have been some dreadful mistake, and what can we do?” “I think this concerns you rather than myself, Miss Anstruther,” said Sir Dugald, coming into the room. “I hope I haven’t read much of it, but I really did not see at first that the letter which I was desired under such fearful penalties to deliver to you was on the same sheet as my own.” He held out a letter in Charlie’s writing, which Cecil almost snatched from his hand. As he said, the first page was occupied by an earnest request to him to give the letter into Miss Anstruther’s own hands, as the writer could not help thinking that there had been foul play hitherto with regard to their correspondence. The other three pages contained the letter proper, closely written, and overflowing with passionate anxiety.