I thought I'd got his letter with me; and I would have read you a
part of it, but I left it at Mrs. Dawson's in my desk; and I can't
send it to you,' blushing as she remembered certain passages in
which 'the captain' wrote very much like a lover, 'or else I would.
But you may be quite sure it was your husband that ventured into all
that danger to save his old friend's life, or the captain would not
have said so.'

'But they weren't--they weren't--not to call great friends.'

'I wish I'd got the letter here; I can't think how I could be so
stupid; I think I can almost remember the very words, though--I've
read them over so often. He says, "Just as I gave up all hope, I saw
one Philip Hepburn, a man whom I had known at Monkshaven, and whom I
had some reason to remember well"--(I'm sure he says so--"remember
well"), "he saw me too, and came at the risk of his life to where I
lay. I fully expected he would be shot down; and I shut my eyes not
to see the end of my last chance. The shot rained about him, and I
think he was hit; but he took me up and carried me under cover." I'm
sure he says that, I've read it over so often; and he goes on and
says how he hunted for Mr. Hepburn all through the ships, as soon as
ever he could; but he could hear nothing of him, either alive or
dead. Don't go so white, for pity's sake!' said she, suddenly
startled by Sylvia's blanching colour. 'You see, because he couldn't
find him alive is no reason for giving him up as dead; because his
name wasn't to be found on any of the ships' books; so the captain
thinks he must have been known by a different name to his real one.
Only he says he should like to have seen him to have thanked him;
and he says he would give a deal to know what has become of him; and
as I was staying two days at Mrs. Dawson's, I told them I must come
over to Monkshaven, if only for five minutes, just to hear if your
good husband was come home, and to shake his hands, that helped to
save my own dear captain.'

'I don't think it could have been Philip,' reiterated Sylvia.

'Why not?' asked her visitor; 'you say you don't know where he is;
why mightn't he have been there where the captain says he was?'

'But he wasn't a sailor, nor yet a soldier.'

'Oh! but he was. I think somewhere the captain calls him a marine;
that's neither one nor the other, but a little of both. He'll be
coming home some day soon; and then you'll see!'

Alice Rose came in at this minute, and Mrs. K