t. He was wrong, but it was only
money. It was my son.... Oh yes--he was transported too--but that was
after.... It was only a theft. I cannot talk about my son." Gwen felt
that she shuddered, and that danger lay that way. The fever might
return. She cast about for anything that would divert the conversation
from that terrible son. Dave and Dolly, naturally.

"Stop a minute," said she. "You have never seen Dave's letter that he
wrote to say he knew all about it." And she went away to the front room
to get it.

A peaceful joint was turning both ways at the right speed by itself. The
cat, uninterested, was consulting her own comfort, and the cricket was
persevering for ever in his original statement. Saucepans were simmering
in conformity, with perfect faith in the reappearance of the human
disposer of their events, in due course. Dave's letter lay where Gwen
had left it, between the flower-pots on the window-shelf. She picked it
up and went back with it to the bedside.

"You must have your spectacles and read it yourself. Can you? Where
shall I find them?"

"I think my Ruth has put them in the watch-pocket with my watch, over my
head here." She could make no effort to reach them, but Gwen drew out
both watch and glasses. "What a pretty old watch!" said she.

It pleased the old lady to hear her watch admired. "I had it when I went
out to my husband." She added inexplicably:--"The man brought it back to
me for the reward. He had not sold it." Then she told, clearly enough,
the tale you may remember her telling to Aunt M'riar; about the convict
at Chatham, who brought her a letter from her husband on the river hulk.
"Over fifty years ago now, and it still goes. Only it loses--and
gains.... But show me my boy's letter." She got her glasses on, with
Gwen's help, and read. The word "cistern" was obscure. She quite
understood what followed, saying:--"Oh, yes--so much longer ago than
Dolly's birthday! And we did--we did--think we were dead and buried. The
darling boy!"

"He means each thought the other was. I told him." Gwen saw that the old
face looked happy, and was pleased. She began to think she would be easy
in her mind at Pensham, to-morrow, about old Mrs. Picture, and able to
tell the story to her blind lover with a light heart.

Old Maisie had come to the postscript. "What is this at the end?" said
she. "'The tea is stood ready' for me. And for Granny Marrowbone too."
Gwen saw the old face looking happier than sh