And, saying it, he saw the professor's face change in some subtle way as he looked at him. What there was in this look and change to make him conscious of an inward start he could not have told. It was the merest lifting of the lids, combined with an almost imperceptible movement of the muscles about the mouth; and yet he found it difficult to avoid pausing for a moment. But he accomplished the feat, and felt he had reason to be rather proud of it. "Though what there is to startle him in my mention of Mrs. Amory's evenings," he reflected, "it would require an intellect to explain." Being somewhat given to finding entertainment in quiet speculation upon passing events, he would doubtless have given some attention to the incident, even if it had remained a solitary unexplained and mystifying trifle. But it was not left to stand alone in his mind. It was not fifteen minutes before, in drawing his handkerchief from his breast-pocket, he accidentally drew forth with it a letter, which fell upon the newspaper lying upon the professor's lap, and for a moment rested there with the address upward. And the instant he glanced from the pretty feminine envelope to the professor's face Arbuthnot recognized the fact that something altogether unexpected had occurred again. As he had looked from the envelope to the professor, so the professor looked from the envelope to him. Then he picked the letter up and returned it. "It is a letter," Arbuthnot began,--"a letter"--and paused ignominiously. "Yes," said the professor, as if he had lost something of his own gentle self-possession. "I see it is a letter." It was not a happy remark, nor did Arbuthnot feel his own next effort a particularly successful one. "It is a letter from Mrs. Amory," he said. "She is kind enough to write to me occasionally." "Yes," responded the professor. "I saw that it was from Bertha. Her hand is easily recognized." "It is an unusual hand," said Arbuthnot. "And her letters are very like herself. When it occurs to her to remember me--which doesn't happen as frequently as I could wish--I consider myself fortunate. She writes as she talks, and very few people do that." He ended with a greater degree of composure than he had begun with, but to his surprise he felt that his pulses had quickened, and that there had risen to his face a touch of warmth suggestive of some increase of color, and he did not enjoy the sensation. He began to open the letter. "Shall I"--he said, and then suddenly stopped. He knew why he had stopped, but the professor did not, and to make the pause and return the letter to its envelope and its place in his pocket without an explanation required something like hardihood. "She is well, and seems to be taking advantage of the opportunity to rest," he said, and picked up his "Punch" again, returning to his half-finished comment upon its cartoon as if no interruption had taken place.