Denny took the letter from its envelope and read: ‘London, May 21st;’ then he paused and remarked, ‘We got here on the seventh, you know.’ I nodded hastily, and he went on, ‘My dear Denny--Oh, how awful this is! I can hardly bear to think of it! Poor, poor fellow! Mamma is terribly grieved, and I, of course, even more. Both mamma and I feel that it makes it so much worse, somehow, that this news should come only three days after he must have got mamma’s letter. Mamma says that it doesn’t really make any difference, and that if her letter was _wise_, then this terrible news can’t alter that. I suppose it doesn’t really, but it seems to, doesn’t it? Oh, do write directly and tell me that he wasn’t very unhappy about it when he had that horrible fever. There’s a big blot--because I’m crying! I know you thought I didn’t care about him, but I did--though not (as mamma says) in _one_ way, really. Do you think he forgave me? It would kill me if I thought he didn’t. Do write soon. I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home? Please tell me he didn’t think very badly of me. Mamma joins with me in sincerest sympathy.--Yours _most_ sincerely, Beatrice Kennett Hipgrave. _P.S._--Mr Bennett Hamlyn has just called. He is awfully grieved about poor dear Charley. I always think of him as Charley still, you know. Do write.’ There was a long pause, then Denny observed in a satirical tone: ‘To be thought of still as “Charley” is after all something.’ ‘But what the devil does it mean?’ I cried, leaping from the table. ‘“I suppose you will bring poor dear Charley home,’” repeated Denny, in a meditative tone. ‘Well, it looks rather more like it than it did a few days ago, I must admit.’ ‘Denny, Denny, if you love me, what’s it all about? I haven’t had any letter from--’ ‘Mamma? No, we’ve had no letter from mamma. But then we haven’t had any letters from anybody.’ ‘Then I’m hanged if I--’ I began in bewildered despondency. ‘But, Charley,’ interrupted Denny, ‘perhaps mamma sent a letter to--Mouraki Pasha!’ ‘To Mouraki?’ ‘This letter of mine found its way to Mouraki.’ ‘All letters,’ observed the captain, who was leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling, ‘would pass through his hands, if he chose to make them.’ ‘Good heavens!’ I cried, springing forward. The hint was enough. In an instant my busy, nervous, shaking hands were ruining the neat piles of documents which the captain had reared so carefully in front and on either side of him. I dived, tossed, fumbled, rummaged, scattered, strewed, tore. The captain, incapable of resisting my excited energy, groaned in helpless despair at the destruction of his evening’s work. Denny, having watched me for a few minutes, suddenly broke out into a peal of laughter. I stopped for an instant to glare reproof of his ill-timed mirth, and turned to my wild search again.