d I could meet
you in town, or even run down for the day."

Yes, that would do! That would open the way for confidences, if she
were in a mood to make them. In any case, I should feel more satisfied
in my own mind when I had sent off the message, and shown that I was to
be found if needed.

Looking up suddenly from the tea tray I beheld Ralph Maplestone smiling
to himself across the table, with precisely the same mysterious
accession of complaisance that I had noticed on his first visit to the
flat. Our eyes met, and he turned aside, drawing in his lips to hide
the smile, but the light danced in his eyes, and refused to be quenched.

Most mysterious and perplexing! His moods are evidently very variable.
I am glad he was pleased, but I should very much like to know why!

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

MRS MERRIVALE'S APPEAL.

Every one has noticed that the thought of a friend after a spell of
forgetfulness is frequently the harbinger of a sudden meeting, or of the
receipt of a letter or message. Such happenings are called "curious
coincidences"; but personally I don't consider them curious at all, or
at least no more curious than it is to send a message by telephone, and
to hear in reply a familiar voice speaking across the space. When the
heart sends forth a wireless message of love and goodwill, surely, if we
have in any sense grasped the wonderful power of thought, we must
believe that the message reaches its destination, and calls forth a
response! Right thoughts--thoughts of love and pity and helpfulness--
are prayers winged to heaven and earth; bad thoughts--mean and grudging
and censorious--well, they injure the person who thinks them so much,
that there can't be much poison left for the recipient. In any case,
such leaden things can't rise.

This moralising leads up to the fact that while my own letter to
Delphine lay unfinished on my desk, a note arrived from Ralph
Maplestone, to give me grave news of her husband.

"I am summoned home," he wrote, "in my capacity of vicar's warden.
While I have been in town, poor Merrivale has had an attack of
influenza, which has been pretty serious, and has left him rather
alarmingly weak. I insisted upon calling in a consultant from B--,
whose verdict is that the lungs are seriously threatened. I have feared
it for some time, and am glad that he is now forced to take care. He is
ordered complete rest, and is to get out of England for the spring
months. I shall