r letters!

She neither spoke nor stirred. Slowly, as she remembered that this was
indeed a treason, that here without doubt was death, that she was
outwitted, that she was now the chattel of whosoever held her
letters--as point after point came into her mind, the blood fled from
her face. Cicely Elliott sat down in her chair again, and whilst the
two sat watching her in the falling dusk they seemed to withdraw
themselves from her world of friendship and to become spectators. Ten
minutes before she would have laughed at this nightmare: it had seemed
to her impossible that her letters could have been taken. So many had
got in safety to their bourne. Now....

'Who has my letter?' she cried.

How did she know what was to arise: who was to strike the blow: whence
it would come: what could she still do to palliate its effects? The
boy lay motionless upon the floor, his face sideways upon the boards.

'Who? Who? Who?' she cried. She wrung her hands, and kneeling, with a
swift violence shook him by the coat near his neck. His head struck
the boards and he fell back, motionless still, and like a dead man.

Cicely Elliott looked around her in the darkening room: beside the
ambry there hung a brush of feathers such as they used for the dusting
of their indoor clothes. She glided and hopped to the brush and back
to the hearth: thrust the feathers into the coals and stood again, the
brush hissing and spluttering, before Katharine on her knees.

'Dust the springald's face,' she tittered.

At the touch of the hot feathers and the acrid perfume in his
nostrils, the boy sneezed, stirred and opened his eyes.

'Who has my letter?' Katharine cried.

The lids opened wide in amazement, he saw her face and suddenly closed
his eyes, and lay down with his face to the floor. A spasm of despair
brought his knees up to his chin, his cropped yellow head went
backwards and forwards upon the boards.

'I have lost my advancement,' he sobbed. 'I have lost my advancement.'
A smell of strong liquors diffused itself from him.

'Oh beast,' Katharine cried from her knees, 'who hath my letter?'

'I have lost my advancement,' he moaned.

She sprang from her feet to the fireplace and caught the iron tongs
with which they were wont to place pieces of wood upon the fire. She
struck him a hard blow upon the arm between the shoulder and elbow.

'Sot!' she cried. 'Tell me! Tell me!'

He rose to his seat and held his arms to protect his head and ey