It was nearly a week since Bat Harker had returned from his mission to No. 10 Camp.  He had returned full of satisfaction at the completion of his task, and comforted by the knowledge that the horizon of the mill had been cleared of threatening clouds for at least the period of a year.  Then he encountered the ricochet of the blow which Fate had dealt his friend and employer.

It had been within half an hour of his return, while yet the stains and dust of his journey remained upon him, while yet he was yearning for that rest for his body to which it was entitled.

Bat had concluded the report of his journey, and the two men were closeted together in the office on the hillside.  The lumberman had had no suspicion of the thing that had happened in his absence, and Standing had given no indication.  Standing seemed unchanged.  There had been the customary smile of welcome in his eyes.  There had been the cordial handshake of friendship.  Maybe Standing had talked less, and the searching questions usual in him had not been forthcoming.  Maybe there was a curiously tired, strained look in his eyes.  But that was all.

At the conclusion of his report Bat had bent eagerly forward over the desk which stood between them.  His hard eyes were smiling.  His whole manner was that of a man anticipating something pleasant.

“Say, Les,” he cried, “guess you’ve maybe some news for me, too.  It’s more than a month since—­and you were expecting—­Things all right?”

Standing reached towards the drawer beside him, and as he did so there was a sound.  It was a curious, inarticulate sound that Bat interpreted into a laugh.  The other opened the drawer and drew out the folded pages of a letter.  These he passed across the table, and his eyes were without a shadow of the laugh which Bat thought he had heard.

“Best read it,” he said.  “Take your time.  I’ll just finish these figures I’m working on.”

It was the curious, cold tone that stirred Bat to his first misgiving.

He took the letter.  There were pages of it.  He set them in order and commenced to read.  And meanwhile Standing remained apparently engrossed in his figures.

He read the letter through.  He read it slowly, carefully.  Then, like the other had done, the man to whom it was addressed, he read it a second time.  And as he read every vestige of his previous satisfaction passed from him.  A cold constriction seemed to fasten upon his strong heart.  And a terrible realisation of the tragedy of it all took possession of him.  At the end of his second reading he handed the letter back to its owner without comment of any sort, without a word, but with a hand that, for once in his life, was unsteady.

“That was in the mail Idepski brought,” Standing said, as he returned the letter to its place, and shut and locked the drawer.

“You remember?” he went on, pointing.  “He flung it down there.  Just by the door.  Yes, it was just there, because I stood against the door, and was only just clear of it.”