took myself with Harry Goward, and there he began as soon as we were
alone:

"Well, what is it, Mrs. Price?"

"Nothing but this," I said, gently enough. "I have taken it upon myself
to solve a mystery that has caused a good deal of confusion in our
family."

Without warning I took the muddy letter from my pocket, and slid it
under his eyes upon the big blue blotter.

"I don't wish to be intrusive or strenuous," I pleaded, "none of us
wishes to be that. Nobody is here to call you to account, Mr. Goward,
but you see this letter. It was received at our house in the condition
in which you find it. Would you be so kind as to supply the missing
address? That is all I want of you."

The boy's complexion ran through the palette, and subsided from a
dull Indian-red to a sickly Nile-green. "Hasn't she ever read it?" he
demanded.

"Nobody has ever read it," I said. "Naturally--since it is not
addressed. This letter went fishing with Billy."

The young man took the letter and examined it in trembling silence.

Perhaps if Fate ever broke him on her wheel it was at that moment. His
destiny was still in his own hands, and so was the letter. Unaddressed,
it was his personal property. He could retain it if he chose, and the
family mystery would darken into deeper gloom than ever. I felt my
comfortable, commonplace heart beat rapidly.

Our silence had passed the point of discomfort, and was fast reaching
that of anguish, when the boy lifted his head manfully, dipped one of
"The Happy Family's" new pens into a stately ink-bottle, and rapidly
filled in the missing address upon the unfortunate letter. He handed it
to me without a word. My eyes blurred when I read:

"Personal. Miss Peggy Talbert, Eastridge. (Kindness of Miss Alice
Talbert.)"

"What shall I do with it?" I asked, controlling my agitation.

"Deliver it to her, if you please, as quickly as possible. I thought of
everything else. I never thought of this."

"Never thought of--"

"That she might not have got it."

"Now then, Mr. Goward," I ventured, still speaking very gently, "do you
mind telling me what you took that 5.40 train for?"

"Why, because I didn't get an answer from the letter!" exclaimed Harry,
raising his voice for the first time. "A man doesn't write a letter such
as that more than once in a lifetime. It was a very important letter.
I told her everything. I explained everything. I felt I ought to have a
hearing. If she wanted to throw me over (I