“Do you remember him, either of you?” Felstead continued. “Rather good-looking he was, and a little shy, but quite a sportsman.” “I--seem to remember,” Philippa admitted. “The name sounds familiar,” Helen echoed. “Do have some more chutney, Dick.” “Thanks! What a pig I am making of myself!” he observed cheerfully. “You girls will think I can't talk about any one but Maderstrom, but the whole business beats me so completely. Of course, we were great pals, in a way, but I never thought that I was the apple of his eye, or anything of that sort. How he got the influence, too, I can't imagine. And oh! I knew there was something else I was going to ask you girls,” Felstead went on. “Have you ever had a letter, or rather a letter each, uncensored? Just a line or two? I think I mentioned Maderstrom which I should not have been allowed to do in the ordinary prison letters.” Felstead was helping himself to cheese, and he saw nothing of the quick glance which passed between the two women. “Yes, we had them, Dick,” Philippa told him. “It was one afternoon--it doesn't seem so very long ago. And oh, how thankful we were!” Felstead nodded. “He got them across all right, then. Tell me, did they come through Holland? What was the postmark?” “The postmark,” Philippa repeated, a little doubtfully. “You heard what Dick asked, Helen? The postmark?” “I don't think there was one,” Helen replied, glancing anxiously at Philippa. Felstead set down his glass. “No postmark? You mean no foreign postmark, I suppose? They were posted in England, eh?” Philippa shook her head. “They came to us, Dick,” she said, “by hand.” Felstead was, without a doubt, astonished. He turned round in his chair towards Philippa. “By hand?” he repeated. “Do you mean to say that they were actually brought here by hand?” Perhaps something in his manner warned them. Philippa laughed as she bent over his chair. “We will tell you how they came, presently,” she declared, “but not until you have finished your lunch, drunk the last drop of that champagne, and had at least two glasses of the port that Mills has been decanting so carefully. After that we will see. Just now I have only one feeling, and I know that Helen has it, too. Nothing else matters except that we have you home again.” Felstead patted his sister on the cheek, drew her face down to his and kissed her. “It's so wonderful to be at home!” he exclaimed apologetically. “But I must warn you that I am the rabidest person alive. I went out to the war with a certain amount of respect for the Germans. I have come back loathing them like vermin. I spent--but I won't go on.” Mills made his appearance with the decanter of port. “I beg your ladyship's pardon,” he said, as he filled Felstead's glass, “but Mr. Lessingham has arrived and is in the library, waiting to see you.” CHAPTER XXVIII