|It had fallen to her lot to write to Claude Westwood the letter which told him of the death of the brother to whom he had all his life been devoted. She knew that a telegraphic message had been sent to the Consul at Zanzibar respecting the death of Richard Westwood, the day after the news of the safety of Claude had reached England, so that he would not receive the first shock of the terrible news from her. She had done her best in her letter to comfort him--indeed, every word that it contained was designed to be a consolation to him. Why, the very sight of her writing would make him feel that his grief was shared by at least one friend. The letter had not, of course, been written in the strain of the letters which she had sent to him during the first few months after his arrival in Africa. (Some of them had been returned to her from Zanzibar with the inscription “Not found” on the covers.) She thought that any of the rapturous phrases, which could give but very inadequate expression to what was in her heart, would be out of place in a letter that she meant to be expressive only of the deep sympathy she felt for him. But the following week she had written to him something of what was in her heart, She had taken up once more the strain of that correspondence which had been so rudely interrupted, and had wondered to find how easily the unaccustomed words of endearment slipped from her pen. It seemed to her that her love had been accumulating in her heart through all the years of her enforced silence, for she had never before written to him such phrases of affection. When she had written that letter she had a sense of relief beyond expression. The pent-up flood had at last found a vent. She gave a great sigh as she signed, not her own name, but the pet name which he had given her--a great sigh, and then a laugh of delight. But then she caught sight of herself in the looking-glass that hung above her escritoire. It seemed to her that all her hair had become grey--that her face had become all scarred with lines. She closed her eyes and had a vision of the slender girl to whom that love-name had been given. She had a vision of the sparkling eyes, the brown hair flung back when one long shining strand had escaped from the knot in which it had beer, tied, and fell down from her shoulder. She could see his eyes as he turned them upon her, when he had kissed and kissed that wonderful rivulet of hair, calling her by that love-name. And now.... Ah, she was no longer a girl! The pet name which she had written so lightly no longer sat lightly upon her. Would not people think it grotesque for a woman past thirty to call herself by the name that had once seemed so charmingly appropriate when applied to a girl of twenty-three with a rivulet of golden brown hair flowing over her shoulders to meet a lover's kisses?