hat her eyes
fell on. Her own filled with tears. Wiping them away before going on to
read more, she caught sight of the date. "On board H.M.'s troopship
_Ariadne_, 27th November."

Anne started. Stranger and stranger. _Two_ days later than the reported
date of his death--and the writing so strong and clear. No sign of
weakness or illness even! She read on with frantic eagerness; it was
not a very long letter, but when Anne had read the two or three somewhat
hurriedly written pages, her face had changed as if from careworn, pallid
middle age, back to fresh, sunny youth. She fell on her knees in fervent,
unspoken thanksgiving. She kissed the letter--the dear, beautiful letter,
as if it were a living thing!

"It is too much--too much," she said. "What have I done to deserve such
blessedness?"

This was what the letter told. The officer whose death had been
announced was not "our Major Graham," not Graham of the 113th at all,
but an officer belonging to another regiment who had come on board at
Madeira to return to India, believing his health to be quite restored.
"The doctors had in some way mistaken his case," wrote Kenneth, "for he
broke down again quite suddenly and died two days ago. He was a very
good fellow, and we have all been very cut up about it. He took a fancy
to me, and I have been up some nights with him, and I am rather done
up myself. I write this to post at the Cape, for a fear has struck me
that--his initials being so like mine--some report may reach you that it
is _I_, not he. Would you care very much, dear Anne? I dare to think you
would--but I cannot in a letter tell you why. I must wait till I see
you. I have had a somewhat strange experience, and it is possible, just
possible, that I may be able to tell you all about it, _viva voce_,
sooner than I had any idea of when I last saw you. In the meantime,
good-bye and God bless you, my dear child."

Then followed a postscript--of some days' later date, written in great
perturbation of spirit at finding that the letter had, by mistake, not
been posted at the Cape. "After all my anxiety that you should see it
as soon as or before the newspapers, it is really too bad. I cannot
understand how it happened. I suppose it was that I was so busy getting
poor Graham's papers and things together to send on shore, that I
overlooked it. It cannot now be posted till we get to Galles."

That was all. But was it not enough, and more than enough? The next few
weeks