“Baden Hotel, Leukerbad, June 14.
“Dearest Mother,—Duke has written about our falling in with the Brownlows, and how pluckily Friar caught us up. It was a regular mercy, for the little one couldn’t have lived without Dr. Medlicott, and most likely Lucas is in for a rheumatic fever. He has been telling me all about it, and how frightful it was to be all night out on the edge of the glacier in a thick fog with his ankle strained, and how little Armine went on with his texts and hymns and wasn’t a bit afraid, but quite happy. You never would believe what a fellow Brownlow is. We have had a great talk, and you will never have to say again that he does me harm.
“Mammy, darling, I want to tell you that I was a horrible donkey last half, worse than you guessed, and I am sorrier than ever I was before, and this is a real true resolution not to do it again. Brownlow and I have promised to stand by one another about right and wrong to our lives’ end. He means it, and what Brownlow means he does, and so do I. We said your collect, and somehow I do feel as if God would help us now.
“Please, dearest mother, forgive me for all I have not told you.
“Duke is very well and jolly. He is quite smitten with Mrs. Brownlow, and, what is more, so is Reeves, who says she is ‘such a lady that it is a pleasure to do anything for her.’
“Your loving son,
“C. F. E.”
Cecil’s letter went off with his brother’s in early morning; but it was such a day as only mails and postmen encounter. Mountains, pine-woods, nay, even the opposite houses, were blotted out by sheets of driving rain, and it was impossible to think of bringing Jock down! Dr. Medlicott heard and saw with dismay. What would the mother say to him—nay, what ought he to have done? He could hardly expect her not to reproach him, and he fairly dreaded meeting her eyes when they turned from the streaming window.
But all she said was, “We did not reckon on this.”
“If I had—” began the doctor.