His stay had lengthened beyond the month he had first spoken of.

It was in the seventh week of his coming that he came home to his dinner one June evening, complaining to my mother of having got a great wetting in a sudden storm that had come on that afternoon while he was away out in the country, and next morning he was in bed with a bad pain in his chest, and not over well able to talk.

My mother kept him in his bed and began to doctor him; that day, about noon, came for him the first and only letter he ever had while he was with us--a letter that came in a registered envelope.

The servant-maid took it up to him when it was delivered, and she said later that he started a bit when he saw it.

But he said nothing about it to my mother during that afternoon, nor indeed to me, specifically, when, later on, he sent for me to go up to his room.