I know already.
We shall see.'

This was the letter which Mark read, while the northeast wind roared
through the boughs overhead, driving the gritty shell-dust in his
face, and making the thin paper in his fingers flap with its vicious
jerks:--

'Talipot Bungalow, Newera Ellia, Ceylon.

'MY DEAR MARK,--I am not going to reproach you for your
long silence, as I dare say you waited for me to write
first. I have been intending to write again and again,
and have been continually prevented, but I hardly
expected to hear from you unless you had anything of
importance to tell me. Something, however, has just come
to my knowledge here which makes me fancy that you might
have other reasons for not writing.' ('What does he mean
by that?' thought Mark, in sudden terror, and for a
moment dared not read on.) 'Have you by some strange
chance been led to believe that I was on board the
unfortunate "Mangalore" at the time of the disaster?
because I see, on looking over some old Indian papers at
the club here, that my name appears on the list of
missing. As a matter of fact, I left the ship at Bombay.
I had arranged to spend a day or two with some people,
old friends of my father's, who have a villa on the
Malabar Hill, but on my arrival there found a telegram
from Ceylon, warning me to lose no time if I wished to
see my father alive. The "Mangalore" was to stop several
more days at Bombay, and I decided to go on at once
overland to Madras and take my chance there of a steamer
for Colombo, leaving my hosts to send down word to the
ship of my change of plan. I can only suppose that there
was some misunderstanding about this, and even then I
cannot understand how the steward could have returned me
as on board under the circumstances; but if only the
mistake has given you no distress it is not of much
consequence, as I wrote since my arrival here to the
only other quarter in which the report might have caused
alarm. To continue my story, I was fortunate enough to
catch a boat at Madras, and so reached Colombo some time
before the "Mangalore" was due there, and as I went on
at once to Yatagalla, it is not to be wondered at if in
that remote part of the country--up in Oudapusilava, in
the hill district--it was long before I even heard of
the wreck. There was not much