Constance took the letter trembling.  “Here it is at last,” she cried.

When she had put on her spectacles and read it, she exclaimed: 

“Bless us!  Here’s news!  He’s coming down!  That’s why he didn’t write on Saturday as usual.”

She gave the letter to Sophia to read.  It ran—­

“Sunday midnight.

“Dear mother,

“Just a line to say I am coming down to Bursley on Wednesday, on business with Peels.  I shall get to Knype at 5.28, and take the Loop.  I’ve been very busy, and as I was coming down I didn’t write on Saturday.  I hope you didn’t worry.  Love to yourself and Aunt Sophia.

“Yours, C.”

“I must send him a line,” said Constance, excitedly.

“What?  To-night?”

“Yes.  Amy can easily catch the last post with it.  Otherwise he won’t know that I’ve got his letter.”

She rang the bell.

Sophia thought:  “His coming down is really no excuse for his not writing on Saturday.  How could she guess that he was coming down?  I shall have to put in a little word to that young man.  I wonder Constance is so blind.  She is quite satisfied now that his letter has come.”  On behalf of the elder generation she rather resented Constance’s eagerness to write in answer.

But Constance was not so blind.  Constance thought exactly as Sophia thought.  In her heart she did not at all justify or excuse Cyril.  She remembered separately almost every instance of his carelessness in her regard.  “Hope I didn’t worry, indeed!” she said to herself with a faint touch of bitterness, apropos of the phrase in his letter.

Nevertheless she insisted on writing at once.  And Amy had to bring the writing materials.

“Mr. Cyril is coming down on Wednesday,” she said to Amy with great dignity.

Amy’s stony calmness was shaken, for Mr. Cyril was a great deal to Amy.  Amy wondered how she would be able to look Mr. Cyril in the face when he knew that she had given notice.

In the middle of writing, on her knee, Constance looked up at Sophia, and said, as though defending herself against an accusation:  “I didn’t write to him yesterday, you know, or to-day.”

“No,” Sophia murmured assentingly.

Constance rang the bell yet again, and Amy was sent out to the post.

Soon afterwards the bell was rung for a fourth time, and not answered.

“I suppose she hasn’t come back yet.  But I thought I heard the door.  What a long time she is!”

“What do you want?” Sophia asked.

“I just want to speak to her,” said Constance.

When the bell had been rung seven or eight times, Amy at length re-appeared, somewhat breathless.

“Amy,” said Constance, “let me examine those sheets, will you?”

“Yes’m,” said Amy, apparently knowing what sheets, of all the various and multitudinous sheets in that house.