He turned back to her. He brought her the letter still unopened and placed it in her hands. Cynthia received it as though written upon its cover she would read the revelation of his secret. Yet she saw nothing but a soiled envelope with a foreign stamp. She gazed up at her husband mystified.
"Look at the stamp, Cynthia!" said Rames in a queer voice.
Cynthia looked. It wore the head familiar to English people. But the lettering about the head was strange. She spelled it out.
"Rexland."
With a start she turned to him. "That is the country you discovered."
"Yes. A stamp was struck to commemorate my discovery of it."
"A stamp?" cried Cynthia. "Wait a minute, Harry! You once spoke of a stamp to me before. Yes, on the morning of the day when you were to deliver your speech--the speech which failed. It was this stamp of which you were speaking?"
"Yes."
"You remembered it on that morning, even when your thoughts were full of the speech you were going to deliver."
"I remembered it by accident," he said sharply. "I can't think why. It had been out of my thoughts for so long. Yet it was that stamp." His voice softened. "It is issued by the post-office--for a penny. Just think of it! A penny stamp brings a letter from the Antarctic seas to us here in Warwickshire."