“I bring you a letter which is addressed to my late client, Mr. Westwood,” said he. “In the ordinary way of business, I have, of course, opened the few letters that have been addressed to him by persons whom the news of his death had not time to reach, but in this particular case I have brought the letter to you.” He handed her an envelope which was in such a condition as to suggest that it had been lying for a wet day or two in the roadway at Charing Cross or some thoroughfare equally well frequented, and that afterwards some one had dropped it by mistake into one of the iron dust-bins instead of a pillar-box. It was soiled and dilapidated to such an extent as made Agnes uncertain on which side the address was written. But she was able to read on a corner that had been scraped, the one postmark “Zanzibar.” The letter dropped from her hand. “The pity of it--ah, the pity of it!” she cried. “I will leave it with you, Miss Mowbray,” said the lawyer, rising. “I think that it is into your hands it should be put. You will read it at your leisure, and if it contains any matter upon which you think I should be informed, you will be good enough to communicate with me.” CHAPTER XI. |For some time after the lawyer had left the house, the letter lay unheeded at Agnes's feet. She could only say to herself, “The pity of it! The pity of it!” as her eyes overflowed with tears. It seemed very pitiful to her to see lying there the letter which the man to whom it was addressed would never see. She thought of the gladness which receiving that letter would have brought into the life that had passed away. Not for a single moment did she feel jealous because it had arrived in England unaccompanied by any letter to herself. She felt that it was fitting that the first letter written by Claude since his return to civilisation--such civilisation as was represented by the sending and receiving of letters--should be to the brother whom he loved so well. It was some time before she could take it up and open the cover. When at last she did so, standing at the window leading into her garden to catch all the light that remained in the sky, she failed to detect any but the most distant resemblance in the handwriting to Claude's, as she had known it. But as she read the first words her tears began to flow once more, and she could only press the letter to her lips and say, “Thank God, thank God, for allowing me to see his handwriting once more!” The letter was not a long one. The writer assumed that his brother would think that he was reading a message from another world. “And by Heaven you won't be so far wrong, old boy,” he wrote, “for I don't suppose any human being ever went so near as I did to the border-line of that undiscovered country without passing over into the land of shadows.”