With his newspapers had come several letters, but they all lay untouched beside him for more than an hour. By-and-by he roused himself sufficiently from his abstraction to turn them listlessly over, and then to take them up one after another and stare at their superscriptions with glazed, incurious eyes. There was only one, and it was the last one that he took up, which roused his dull senses to any sign of recognition. “This must be from Fanny,” he said. “I’d swear to her writing anywhere. All the way from Ems, too. Still as fond of those nauseous German waters as ever she was. No wonder she’s never well.” Then his thoughts reverted to his loss, and with a sigh he dropped the letter on the table. Two or three minutes later a sudden colour flushed his cheeks, and with nervous fingers he sought on the table for the letter from Ems. “She—she can’t be writing for her money!” he said with a gasp. Then he tore open the letter. This is what he read therein:— “My Dear Brother,— “I hope that this will find you quite well, although you were never the man to give me the least credit for caring about your health. I hope to be in England in the course of another fortnight, when I shall at once make my way to Pincote. I presume that I shall not be looked upon as an intruder if I ask you to find me a bed for a few nights. Goodness knows it is not often I trouble you, and I am sure Jane must have many things to talk about to me, who am her nearest living female relative. As regards the five thousand pounds which I desired you to invest for me, or make use of in any way that might seem most desirable under the circumstances, I shall be glad if you will arrange to hand it over to me together with any amount that may have accrued to it for interest, immediately upon my arrival at Pincote. I have decided to invest all my available funds in real estate: nothing else seems permanent and safe in these days of chances and changes. For my part, I shan’t be a bit surprised if within the next ten years we see the guillotine as hard at work again as ever it was in the dreadful days of the First Revolution. I think it right to let you know about the money so that you may be prepared. Give my love to Jane. I hope her hair is no longer that intolerable red that it used to be. The resources of art are many and various, and something could doubtless be done for her. But I must talk to her about all these matters when I see her, although I am afraid that nothing can ever make her pretty. Believe me your loving sister, “Fanny Mcdermott. “P.S.—Don’t give me a bedroom that faces either the east or the north; and not too many stairs to climb.”