"My Darling Sister,--" We are in all the bustle and hurry of the start. Orders have come at last, and we embark from Southampton on Sunday morning. I _hope_ I shall get down to you to say goodbye. I am not unmindful of my promise to do so, and will do all I can to keep it; poor Dick used to tell me that I knew how to break promises better than I knew how to make them, but it shall not be my fault if you have to east that on me as a last reproach. To absent one's-self, even for an hour, is a difficult task now, but I will manage it, if possible. We have been worked off our heads and legs for the last few days. "Love to all. I suppose Carry is fairly installed at the Abbey; wish her all good luck for me.--Ever yours, in much haste, "E. F. Davenal." "You see," said the doctor, halting and pointing to the letter, "he emphasises the word 'hope.' 'I _hope_ I shall get down.' That very fact is sufficient to tell me that he knows he shall not get down, and these lines have been sent as a sort of preparation for the final disappointment. And he is going out for years! But I won't blame him; perhaps it is an impossibility to him to get away. He should have remained longer when he came down for the wedding--have made it his farewell visit. I said so then." Dr. Davenal began his walk to and fro again,--a very slow, thoughtful walk. Oswald folded the letter and laid it on the table. "I have ever loved my children--I was going to say passionately, Mr. Oswald Cray. I believe few parents can love as I have loved. I have made--I have made sacrifices for them which the world little reeks of, and anything like ingratitude touches me to the heart's core. But in the midst of it I am the first to find excuses for them, and I say that Edward may not be at all to blame in this." "I think it very likely that he is quite unable to get away, however much he may wish it," observed Oswald. "I think so too. I say I don't blame him. Only one feels these things." There ensued a silence. A feeling of dislike had come over Oswald (and he could not trace it to any particular cause) to enter upon the subject of Lady Oswald. But he was not one to give way to these fanciful phases of feeling which appear to arise without rhyme or reason, and he was about to speak when the doctor forestalled him. "Lady Oswald's death has brought you down, I presume?" "Yes. I was in ignorance of it until this morning, when a formal invitation to attend the funeral reached me from the undertaker. I had just read the announcement of the death in the 'Times.' How shocked I was, I cannot well express to you." "It has shocked us all." "Of course its reaching me in that abrupt manner, in the public column of deaths, did not tend to lessen the shock. I rather wonder you did not drop me a line yourself, Dr. Davenal." "I was away afterwards. Called out to a distance, I did not get back for a day or two. Did Mark not write?"