I seized her almost with joy. “Then, in spite of yesterday, you believe———”
“In such doings?” Her simple description of them required, in the light of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole thing as she had never done. “I believe.”
Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been in my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. “There’s one thing, of course—it occurs to me—to remember. My letter, giving the alarm, will have reached town before you.”
I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and how weary at last it had made her. “Your letter won’t have got there. Your letter never went.”
“What then became of it?”
“Goodness knows! Master Miles———”
“Do you mean he took it?” I gasped.
She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. “I mean that I saw yesterday, when I came back
