“Richard?” Philippa almost shrieked.

“You have seen Dick?” Helen gasped.

The intruder dived in his pockets and produced two sealed envelopes.  He handed one each simultaneously to Helen and to Philippa.

“My letters of introduction,” he explained, with a little sigh of relief.  “I trust that during their perusal you will invite me to have some tea.  I am almost starving.”

The two women hastened towards the lamp.

“One moment, I beg,” their visitor interposed.  “I have established, I trust, my credentials.  May I remind you that I was compelled to ensure the safety of these few minutes’ conversation with you, by locking that door.  Are you likely to be disturbed?”

“No, no!  No chance at all,” Philippa assured him.

“If we are, we’ll explain,” Helen promised.

“In that case,” the intruder begged, “perhaps you will excuse me.”

He moved towards the door and softly turned the key, then he drew the curtains carefully across the French windows.  Afterwards he made his way towards the tea-table.  A little throbbing cry had broken from Helen’s lips.

“Philippa,” she exclaimed, “it’s from Dick!  It’s Dick’s handwriting!”

Philippa’s reply was incoherent.  She was tearing open her own envelope.  With a well-satisfied smile, the bearer of these communications seized a sandwich in one hand and poured himself out some tea with the other.  He ate and drank with the restraint of good-breeding, but with a voracity which gave point to his plea of starvation.  A few yards away, the breathless silence between the two women had given place to an almost hysterical series of disjointed exclamations.

“It’s from Dick!” Helen repeated.  “It’s his own dear handwriting.  How shaky it is!  He’s alive and well, Philippa, and he’s found a friend.”

“I know—­I know,” Philippa murmured tremulously.  “Our parcels have been discovered, and he got them all at once.  Just fancy, Helen, he’s really not so ill, after all!”

They drew a little closer together.

“You read yours out first,” Helen proposed, “and then I’ll read mine.”

Philippa nodded.  Her voice here and there was a little uncertain.

  My dearest sister,

I have heard nothing from you or Helen for so long that I was really getting desperate.  I have had a very rough time here, but by the grace of Providence I stumbled up against an old friend the other day, Bertram Maderstrom, whom you must have heard me speak of in my college days.  It isn’t too much to say that he has saved my life.  He has unearthed your parcels, found me decent quarters, and I am getting double rations.  He has promised, too, to get this letter through to you.

You needn’t worry about me now, dear.  I am feeling twice the
man I was a month ago, and I shall stick it out now quite easily.