‘Surely not for poor Lizzie’s unhappiness!’ said Adela, with a return of her maiden archness.

’On our own account, my dear.  We have had so much to contend against.  At one time, just after your poor father’s death, things looked very cheerless:  I used to fret dreadfully on your account.  But everything, you see, was for the best’

Adela had something to say and could not find the fitting moment.  She first drew her chair a little nearer to her mother.

‘Yes, mother, I am happy,’ she murmured.

’Silly child!  As if I didn’t know best.  It’s always the same, but you had the good sense to trust to my experience.’

Adela slipped from her seat and put her arms about her mother.

‘What is it, dear?’

The reply was whispered.  Adela’s embrace grew closer; her face was hidden, and all at once she began to sob.

‘Love me, mother!  Love me, dear mother!’

Mrs. Waltham beamed with real tenderness.  For half an hour they talked as mother and child alone can.  Then Adela walked back to the Manor, still dreaming.  She did not feel able to call and see Letty.

There was an afternoon postal delivery at Wanley, and the postman had just left the Manor as Adela returned.  Alice, who for a wonder had been walking in the garden, saw the man going away, and, thinking it possible there might be a letter for her, entered the house to look.  Three letters lay on the hall table; two were for Richard, the other was addressed to Mrs. Mutimer.  This envelope Alice examined curiously.  Whose writing could that be?  She certainly knew it; it was a singular hand, stiff, awkward, untrained.  Why, it was the writing of Emma’s sister, Kate, Mrs. Clay.  Not a doubt of it.  Alice had received a note from Mrs. Clay at the time of Jane Vine’s death, and remembered comparing the hand with her own and blessing herself that at all events she wrote with an elegant slope, and not in that hideous upright scrawl.  The post-mark?  Yes, it was London, E.C.  But if Kate addressed a letter to Mrs. Mutimer it must be with sinister design, a design not at all difficult to imagine.  Alice had a temptation.  To take this letter and either open it herself or give it secretly to her brother?  But the servant might somehow make it known that such a letter had arrived.

‘Anything for me, Alice?’

It was Adela’s voice.  She had approached unheard; Alice was so intent upon her thoughts.

‘Yes, one letter.’

There was no help for it.  Alice glanced at her sister-in-law, and strolled away again into the garden.

Adela examined the envelope.  She could not conjecture from whom the letter came; certainly from some illiterate person.  Was it for her husband?  Was not the ‘Mrs.’ a mistake for ‘Mr.’ or perhaps mere ill-writing that deceived the eye?  No, the prefix was so very distinct.  She opened the envelope where she stood.