"Won't you read your letter, dear?" said Miss Vane.
"Thank you, aunt Leo." Then she took the letter and opened it; but her color varied strangely as she read, and, when she had finished it, she pushed it towards her aunt. "Will you read it?" she said quietly. "It seems to me that he does not understand our position."
The servants were not in the room, and she could talk freely. Aunt Leo settled her eye-glasses on her nose, and looked at the letter.
"Why, it's from Hubert!" she said breathlessly.
Then she read it half aloud; and Enid winced at the sound of some of the words.
"My dearest Enid," Hubert had written—"I have just heard that you are in town. If I could come to see you, I would; but you know, I suppose, that I have been ill. I have had no letter from you for what seems an interminable time. I must ask you to excuse more from me to-day—my hand is abominably shaky!
"Yours,
"H.L."
The handwriting was certainly shaky; Miss Vane had some difficulty in deciphering the crooked characters.
"H'm!" she said, laying the letter on the table and looking inquiringly at her niece. "What does he mean?"
"He means that he still thinks me engaged to him," said Enid, the color hot in her girlish cheeks.