When one has arrived at the time of life when one weighs beforehand each sentence one writes, even to an intimate friend--instead of dashing recklessly on, as in one's glorious youth--how glad one sometimes is to be put under compulsion about the contents of a letter! Challis wouldn't acknowledge his obligation to the coercion of the Postal limit--not he! But he felt it all the same. For he couldn't have filled out his letter with Universal Security. Marianne wouldn't have understood a word of it. It wasn't her line. And as for his long talk with Judith Arkroyd ... well, now!--why on earth couldn't he just write that he had had one, and that she had told him a lot about the family, and he would write a long letter about it next time, but really this was only a line to catch the Post. Why not, indeed? Yes, of course, that was the proper thing to write. He wrote it, and denied the pause, to his own satisfaction. But he was grateful to the Post for being so coercive and superseding and cancelling all considerations of--of what? He denied that there was anything to cancel, and directed the letter. CHAPTER V OF A RAINY DAY AT ROYD. HOW A MOTOR-CAR CAME TO GRIEF. HOW MISS ARKROYD'S MOTHER WENT TO THANES CASTLE AND SHE HERSELF DIDN'T A little bit of duty done always seems at its best when it has taken the form of a written letter. Because when the time comes for posting, whatever the letter may contain--whether it be a lame apology for breaking an engagement or a promise to send a cheque without fail next week--the penny stamp and the direction are just the same as if it had been to reproach Angela for not appearing yesterday at church-parade in Hyde Park, or had enclosed a final discharge of your tailor's account. So Mr. Challis's rather perfunctory line to catch the Post, boldly stamped and directed, quite set his mind at ease about his home obligations as soon as ever it was licked and stuck to, past recall. In fact, so relieved was his conscience, after he had handed this letter to Elphinstone the butler to see that it went to the Post for him, that he felt quite at liberty to enjoy some more soul-brush the next time the chance came. All the more from a conviction of the importance of its contents conveyed by the professional manner of Mr. Elphinstone's reception of it--a manner that said, "_This_ really important letter _shall_ go, whatever other don't!" If this enjoyment of the soul-brush became too oppressive to his conscience, he could square accounts by an extra sheet or so of letter-paper. Anyhow, he could now live for the present. He was rather disgusted to find that, whatever he decided on to enjoy next, it would have to be in the house, unless he was prepared to get wet out of doors. For, taking a mean advantage of him while he was writing his short letter, it had come on to rain.