CHAPTER IV

THE FATE OF A LETTER

HE breakfast room was flooded with sunshine

THE

when Muriel entered it the next morning. The long French windows were open and through them could be seen a lovely glimpse of lawn and flower-beds. A Banksia rose, climbing all over that side of the house, filled the room with fragrance, its numberless little yellow blooms wreathing the window and making a truly exquisite frame for the view of the garden and shrubbery beyond. The family had already gathered around the table, for Muriel was late, and some banter and comment occurred at her expense. Her father, who had nearly finished his breakfast, was engrossed in the morning news and paid but little heed to the bright and somewhat noisy talk that was banded back and forth between his daughters until, with an exclamation, he lowered his paper and looked at them over the rim of his glasses. "Ch, my dears," he exclaimed, "there is a most

distressing item of news, a truly shocking calamity, recorded in this paper, that will sadly afflict a good neighbour of ours! I am grieved and appalled. Truly it shows how dangerous an evil are modern ideas and modes of life. When young people throw aside their scholastic opportunity and spend their precious academic years in developing the lower and animal strength of their bodies, you may be sure that disaster will follow. Listen to this item gathered from over-seas:

"A YOUNG ENGLISHMAN ARRESTED FOR MURDER.

"A peculiarly brutal and gruesome crime is reported by the American papers as having occurred in one of the smaller towns in that country. The murderer, who was arrested redhanded, is spoken of as a young Englishman of good family. The deed was committed in a small hotel where the murderer and his victim had met and quarrelled. A very violent storm was raging at the time and it is possible that the murderer, after robbing his victim, intended to make his escape under cover of the tempest. Two other guests of the hotel, however, had heard strange sounds through the somewhat thin walls of the room and forced their way into the chamber in time to catch the murderer

leaning over his victim and trying to draw the knife from the wound. The knife was afterwards identified as his, in fact it bore his name engraved upon it. The man, who was at once arrested and jailed, has shown much cool bravado and maintains his innocence. It is known that he is a representative of a very good firm and has been regarded as a young man of much promise. Rumour intimates that he left home under a cloud and his antecedents are being inquired into. He claims that his name is Jack Morris but it is quite likely he is living in America under an alias. It is most deplorable that a man of education, and apparently of gentle birth, should, through passion or intoxication, prove himself so brutal a specimen of manhood. It goes to show that the primitive passions often exist just as strongly beneath the veneer of cultivated manners as in the rougher and coarser specimens of the human family.""

Profound silence had reigned during the reading of this item in the musical, sonorous, and rhythmic tones that made the Rector's voice a joy to all listeners. Each member of the little family had kept her eyes riveted on his face, but now with one accord they turned to glance at Muriel, whose girlish friendship for Jack had been known

to all. Every vestige of colour had left her face, her eyes had the look of a stricken deer, and her white hands clutched each other convulsively in the desperate effort at self-control. The horror, fear, bewilderment that swept over her features gave place at last to anger and indignation.

"It's a lie!" she cried, rising-"a wicked, heartless, dastardly lie! Jack could never commit such a crime, and no sane person who ever knew him could for a moment believe it." She pushed back her chair with such vigour that it clattered unheeded to the floor. She left the room and fled to the blessed solitude of her den, where with locked door she could cast herself on the lounge and cry out her grief and rage. Some hours later she stood calm and composed once more before her desk. A cablegram she had written lay upon the blotter, and from one of the pigeon-holes the letter she had so carefully addressed and sealed the night before confronted her. The cablegram was addressed to Jack Morris and read: "Love unchanged. Unbounded confidence. Shall I come to you?-Merry."

Before she went forth to send her message, she kindled a fire in the open grate and burned the letter, feeling unutterably thankful that she had not chanced to write it a few hours earlier. In

the light of the present misfortune that shadowed Jack's life, such a message from her would have seemed harsh, almost to brutality. Poor boy, in that prison cell in a far-away land, he surely needed all she could give him of hope and love and sympathy.

The hours that elapsed between the sending of her message and its answer seemed an eternity. Muriel tried to fulfil little home duties; she gathered flowers to fill the many vases that beautified the drawing-room and gave a touch of colour and sweetness to the old wainscoted hall. She rode over to call on her old nurse, who lived in a honeysuckle-covered cottage in the next village. It was to that friend of her childhood days that Jack Morris addressed his letters, and she expected her cablegram to be sent there also. As the tide was low she rode back by the beach, and the gallop over the sands, with the soft salt breeze fanning her hot cheeks, and the far green waters resting her tear-scorched eyes, did much to restore her spirits. It was Merry's nature to cross the street from the shady to the sunny side of life. She tried always to see the rainbow in the cloud, the star of promise in the darkness of night. So to-day she told herself that this was a nightmare that would swiftly pass. A horrible mistake,