That queer little document! I can see it now for the childish simple thing it was, but at the time I read it in a suppressed anguish of rage. It plunged me into a pit of hopeless shame; there seemed to remain no pride for me in life until I had revenge. I stood staring at those rounded upstanding letters, not trusting myself to speak or move. At last I stole a glance at Stuart. He held the envelope in his hand, and stared down at the postmark between his horny thumbnails. “You can’t even tell where she is,” he said, turning the thing round in a hopeless manner, and then desisting. “It’s hard on us, Willie. Here she is; she hadn’t anything to complain of; a sort of pet for all of us. Not even made to do her share of the ‘ousework. And she goes off and leaves us like a bird that’s learnt to fly. Can’t _trust_ us, that’s what takes me. Puts ‘erself— But there! What’s to happen to her?” “What’s to happen to him?” He shook his head to show that problem was beyond him. “You’ll go after her,” I said in an even voice; “you’ll make him marry her?” “Where am I to go?” he asked helplessly, and held out the envelope with a gesture; “and what could I do? Even if I knew— How could I leave the gardens?” “Great God!” I cried, “not leave these gardens! It’s your Honor, man! If she was my daughter—if she was my daughter—I’d tear the world to pieces!” . . I choked. “You mean to stand it?” “What can I do?” “Make him marry her! Horsewhip him! Horsewhip him, I say!—I’d strangle him!” He scratched slowly at his hairy cheek, opened his mouth, and shook his head. Then, with an intolerable note of sluggish gentle wisdom, he said, “People of our sort, Willie, can’t do things like that.” I came near to raving. I had a wild impulse to strike him in the face. Once in my boyhood I happened upon a bird terribly mangled by some cat, and killed it in a frenzy of horror and pity. I had a gust of that same emotion now, as this shameful mutilated soul fluttered in the dust, before me. Then, you know, I dismissed him from the case. “May I look?” I asked. He held out the envelope reluctantly. “There it is,” he said, and pointing with his garden-rough forefinger. “I.A.P.A.M.P. What can you make of that?” I took the thing in my hands. The adhesive stamp customary in those days was defaced by a circular postmark, which bore the name of the office of departure and the date. The impact in this particular case had been light or made without sufficient ink, and half the letters of the name had left no impression. I could distinguish— I A P A M P and very faintly below D.S.O. I guessed the name in an instant flash of intuition. It was Shaphambury. The very gaps shaped that to my mind. Perhaps in a sort of semi-visibility other letters were there, at least hinting themselves. It was a place somewhere on the east coast, I knew, either in Norfolk or Suffolk. “Why!” cried I—and stopped. What was the good of telling him?