The day following the secret meeting of the Mafia was one of those devoted to home correspondence. The girls were alloted forty minutes during school hours: they brought their writing-cases into the class-room, and scribbled off as many letters as possible during the brief time allowed. On this particular Wednesday Dulcie was much in arrears; she wrote three letters to Sicily, one to an aunt in London, a short scrawl to Everard, and was beginning "My dear Cousin Clare," when Miss Hardy entered the room in a hurry. "Jones has to leave half an hour earlier," she announced, "and he wants to take the post-bag now. Be quick, girls, and give me your letters!" A general scramble of finishing and stamping ensued. Dulcie, who had not addressed her envelopes, folded her loose sheets anyhow, and trusted to luck that the foreign letters were not over-weight. "I can't help it if they have to pay extra on them," she confided to Carmel. "They look rather heavy, certainly, but I hadn't any thin note paper, you see." "Douglas will pay up cheerfully, I'm sure!" "How do you know that his was a heavy one?" "Oh, I can guess!" "I was only answering a number of questions he asked me. It's very unkind not to answer people's questions!" "Most decidedly! I quite agree with you!" laughed Carmel. The letters were posted in Glazebrook that evening by the factotum Jones, and Dulcie, though her thoughts might possibly follow the particular heavy envelope addressed to Montalesso, dismissed her other items of correspondence completely from her mind. She was taking a run round the garden the next morning at eleven o'clock "break," when to her immense surprise she heard a trotting of horse's hoofs on the drive, and who should appear but Everard, riding Rajah. The rules at Chilcombe Hall were strict. No visits were allowed, even from brothers, without special permission from Miss Walters. Hitherto Everard had come over only by express invitation from the head-mistress, and this had been given sparingly, at discreet intervals, and always for the afternoon. Surely some most unusual circumstance must have brought him to school at the early hour of eleven in the morning? Dulcie flew across the lawn, calling his name. At the sight of his sister Everard dismounted, and greeted her eagerly. "Hello! How are you? How's Carmel?" he began. "I say, you know, this has been a shocking business! You look better than I expected" (scanning her face narrowly). "It's a mercy you aren't all under the daisies! Is Carmel _really_ lame? What about those fits? I came directly I read your letter. A specialist must be sent for at once! I can't understand Miss Walters taking it so lightly. We ought to have been told at once, directly it happened." As Everard poured forth these remarks, Dulcie's expression underwent several quick changes, and passed from astonishment to sudden comprehension and mirth.