"What has thee to say ?" Without a word, Soolsby handed over the paper, but the other would not take it.
"What is it ?" he asked, his lips growing pale.

"Read--if thee can read." The gibe in the last words made the colour leap into Soolsby's face, and a fighting look came.

He too had staved off this inevitable hour, had dreaded it, but now his courage shot up high.
"Doost think I have forgotten how to read since the day I put my hand to a writing you've hid so long from them it most concerns?
Ay, I can read, and I can write, and I will prove that I can speak too before I've done." "Read--read," rejoined the old man hoarsely, his hands tightly gripping the chair-arm.
"The fever caught him at Shendy--that is the place--" "He is not dead--David is not dead ?" came the sharp, pained interruption.

The old man's head strained forward, his eyes were misty and dazed.
Soolsby's face showed no pity for the other's anxiety; it had a kind of triumph in it.

"Nay, he is living," he answered.