Mrs. Hamlyn’s sharp speech was interrupted by the entrance of Japhet, bringing in the morning letters.  Only one letter, however, for they were not as numerous in those days as they are in these.

“It seems to be important, ma’am,” Japhet remarked, with the privilege of an old servant, as he handed it to his mistress.  She saw it was from Leet Hall, in Mrs. Carradyne’s handwriting, and bore the words:  “In haste,” above the address.

Tearing it open, Eliza Hamlyn read the short, sad news it contained.  Captain Monk had been taken suddenly ill with inward inflammation.  Mr. Speck feared the worst, and the Captain had asked for Eliza.  Would she come down at once?

“Oh, Philip, I must not lose a minute,” she exclaimed, passing the letter to him, and forgetting the pale gold hair and its owner.  “Do you know anything about the Worcestershire trains?”

“No,” he answered.  “The better plan will be to get to the station as soon as possible, and then you will be ready for the first train that starts.”

“Will you go down with me, Philip?”

“I cannot.  I will take you to the station.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because I cannot just now leave London.  My dear, you may believe me, for it is the truth.  I cannot do so.  I wish I could.”

And she saw it was true:  for his tone was so earnest as to tell of pain.

Making what haste she could, kissing her boy a hundred times, and recommending him to the special care of his nurse and of his father during her absence, she drove with her husband to the station, and was just in time for a train.  Mr. Hamlyn watched it steam out of the station, and then looked up at the clock.

“I suppose it’s not too early to see him,” he muttered.  “I’ll chance it, at any rate.  Hope he will be less suffering than he was yesterday, and less crusty, too.”

Dismissing his carriage, for he felt more inclined to walk than to drive, he went through the park to Pimlico, and gained the house of Major Pratt.

This was Friday.  On the previous Wednesday evening a note had been brought to Mr. Hamlyn by Major Pratt’s servant, a sentence in which, as the reader may remember, ran as follows: 

     “I suppose there was no mistake in the report that that ship did
     go down—­and that none of the passengers were saved from it?”

This puzzled Philip Hamlyn:  perhaps somewhat troubled him in a hazy kind of way.  For he could only suppose that the ship alluded to must be the sailing vessel in which his first wife, false and faithless, and his little son of a twelvemonth old had been lost some five or six years ago—­the Clipper of the Seas.  And the next day, (Thursday) he had gone to Major Pratt’s, as requested, to carry the prescription for gout he had asked for, and also to inquire of the Major what he meant.

But the visit was a fruitless one.  Major Pratt was in bed with an attack of gout, so ill and so “crusty” that nothing could be got out of him excepting a few bad words and as many groans.  Mr. Hamlyn then questioned Saul—­of whom he used to see a good deal in India, for he had been the Major’s servant for years and years.