When he did so, which he was half afraid of doing, she kept her word, and produced out of a gay little desk, lined with red, a crumpled note, with the marks of greasy fingers upon it, the sight of which gave Arthur, poor fellow, a sickening sensation. Small feelings so mingle with great that the thought that such a greasy scrap was a relic of his wife gave him as distinct a pang as if some great disappointment had happened to him. A lover, such as he felt himself still to be, ought to have been ready to take to his lips or his heart the meanest message that came from the beloved; but this gave him a feeling of disgust. And yet how he loved Nancy, and how his heart struggled and throbbed at the idea of finding some trace of her. It was at once a relief and a terrible disappointment to find that the greasy letter was not from Nancy at all, but from Matilda, though, as it was the fingers of Mr. Raisins and the pocket of his bride which had produced the stains upon the letter, Nancy’s own autograph might have been in precisely the same condition, unprotected by the divinity that should hedge a woman beloved. “I don’t know where she means to settle, nor what we’re going to do,” wrote Matilda. “She’s always the same hoity-toity creature as ever. She talks about a house she has heard of somewhere right in the country. I can’t tell you any more; but I’ll write again; and in the meantime you’ll be glad to hear that I’ve got some very nice calico, and begun my outfit.” This was all. “She _is_ so taken up about her outfit,” said Sarah Jane. “You would think nobody had ever got such a thing before. But poor Matilda was always old-maidish in her ways. Lord, Arthur! what’s the matter? Have you found out anything? What a turn you did give me, to be sure!” cried Sarah Jane. It was something which gave Arthur “a turn” too, as far as that effect can be produced upon a male subject. It was simply the postmark “Oakenden” on the envelope of the letter. He had not seen it before, nor looked for it, being too anxious for the information inside. It startled him beyond measure now. “Oakenden!” he repeated to himself as in a dream. Something more than chance, some design which he could not fathom, some vague trembling of meaning not yet comprehensible, but tending towards light, seemed to flicker through the word. It was the post-town of _home_. He knew it as well as he knew the village at his father’s park gates. What had taken her there of all places in the world? “Thank you,” he said, speaking, he felt, out of a mist of vague wonder and dawning hope that seemed to envelope him in an atmosphere of his own. “Thank you; I think this will be of some use. I know the place. Good-bye. I must go directly and see if they are there.”