He looked at Mrs. Chattaway in surprise; for she had evidently asked the question seriously. "You know I have not. I am not strong enough to play jokes, Aunt Edith. And if I were, I should not be so senseless as to play _that_ joke. What end would it answer?" "I thought not," she murmured; "I was sure not. Setting everything else aside, Rupert, you are not well enough to write." "No, I don't think I am. I could hardly scrawl those lines to George Ryle some time ago--when the fever was upon me. No, Aunt Edith: the only letter I have written since I became a prisoner was the one I wrote to Mr. Daw, the night I first took shelter here, just after the encounter with Mr. Chattaway, and Ann Canham posted it at Barmester the next day. What on earth can possess Connell and Connell?" "Diana argues that Connell and Connell must be receiving these letters, or they would not write to Mr. Chattaway in the manner they are doing. For my part, I can't make it out." "What does Mr. Chattaway say?" asked Rupert, when a fit of coughing was over. "Is he angry?" "He is worse than angry," she seriously answered; "he is troubled. He thinks you are writing them." "No! Why, he might know that I shouldn't dare do it: he might know that I am not well enough to write them." "Nay, Rupert, you forget that Mr. Chattaway does not know you are ill." "To be sure; I forgot that. But I can't believe Mr. Chattaway is _troubled_. How could a poor, weak, friendless chap, such as I, contend for the possession of Trevlyn Hold? Aunt Edith, I'll tell you what it must be. If Connells are not playing this joke themselves, to annoy Mr. Chattaway, somebody must be playing it on them." Mrs. Chattaway acquiesced: it was the only conclusion she could come to. "Oh, Aunt Edith, if he would only forgive me!" sighed Rupert. "When I get well--and I should get well, if I could go back to the Hold and get this fear out of me--I would work night and day to repay him the cost of the ricks. If he would only forgive me!" Ah! none knew better than Mrs. Chattaway how vain was the wish; how worse than vain any hope of forgiveness. She could have told him, had she chosen, of an unhappy scene of the past night, when she, Edith Chattaway, urged by the miserable state of existing things and her tribulation for Rupert, had so far forgotten prudence as to all but kneel to her husband and beg him to forgive that poor culprit; and Mr. Chattaway, excited to the very depths of anger, had demanded of his wife whether she were mad or sane, that she should dare ask it. "Yes, Rupert," she meekly said, "I wish it also, for your sake. But, my dear, it is just an impossibility." "If I could be got safely out of the country, I might go to Mr. Daw for a time, and get up my strength there."