It congratulated him coldly on his escape, whereof Mr.Knight said he had heard, not in the way that he would have expected, from himself, but through the papers.

This, it may be explained, was not strange, since the account was telegraphed long before Godfrey had time to write.

As a matter of fact, however, he had not written, for who cares to indite epistles to an unsympathetic and critical recipient?
Most people only compose letters for the benefit of those who like to receive them and, by intuition, read in them a great deal more than the sender records in black and white.

For letter-writing, at its best, is an allusive art, something that suggests rather than describes.

It was because Godfrey appreciated this truth in a half unconscious fashion, that he did not care to undertake an active correspondence with his father.