“Um-hum. Well, it is the way I feel--have felt since it happened. I haven’t told you so because--well, because.” “I understand.” “Yes, I guess you do; you ought to know me by this time.... What’s the matter now?” She had risen from the rocker. “Those letters!” she exclaimed. “Mine--and that one for you! I must have left them in the parlor. That talk between you and Mr. Mooney made me forget them altogether. I wouldn’t have believed anything could make me forget _those_.” She ran to the parlor and returned, the letters in her hand. “Here is yours,” she said. He took it from her. “What is all this?” he demanded. “You were crying when you started to give it to me before. I believe you are crying now. What in the name of--” “Read it,” she urged. “Please read it. We can talk about it afterwards.” He tore open the envelope. She hurried to the dining room and remained there for perhaps five minutes. When she came back he was sitting there, his hand resting on his knee and the letter--Esther’s letter--between his fingers. His attitude reminded her of that dreadful evening in her own sitting-room when she had returned to find him after he had read that other letter from his niece. He heard her enter and looked up. “Well!” he observed, with a slow shake of the head. “Well! here is another surprise package for me. Here is another thing you have been keeping from me, eh?” “I couldn’t help it, Foster. Esther and I both thought it was best not to tell you. We were afraid you might be worried.” “Humph! So you thought you would do all the worrying for the pair of us. That is like you, I must say. Did Esther write you? You said you had a letter--from her.” “Mine wasn’t from her. Bob wrote me. But he said Esther insisted on writing you herself. She couldn’t write much of course--not yet. I suppose it wasn’t a long letter.” “Not very.” “But, Foster, isn’t it wonderful? It doesn’t seem as if it could be so, does it?” He sniffed. “Why, I don’t know as it is so tremendously wonderful,” he replied. “About what was to be expected sometime or other, I should say.” “But--but, Foster, did you read it _all_? Didn’t she write you about her--about their--about Mr. Cook?” He turned the letter over. “Um-hum,” he grunted. “She wrote that Cook was in a pretty bad way and that he has asked to have his grandson come and see him.” “Yes, but she and--and the baby will come, too, of course.” “Humph!... The old scamp must have had a change of heart. Ready to forget and forgive, maybe, like the rich old granddads, or whatever they were, in the Sunday School books. Well, he can afford to forgive. He _is_ rich, blast him! That is, provided the lawyers haven’t got the whole of the plunder.” She waited a moment longer. Then she leaned toward him. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” she asked, anxiously. “I shall have to write Esther, you know, and she will want to be told everything.”