"I regret to have to confess that I stole your eyeglasses in a bad moment. There was a very good reason, but, all the same, I am sorry, and also clearly know now that it was a very wrong thing to do. It was a revenge, but it came to nothing, because you had a pair in reserve. I am glad you had. I prefer to be Unknown.
"Your glasses are in a beautiful and rare Indian jar at the left-hand corner of your mantel-piece, and I hope you will forgive, because my eyes have been opened by the visit of the Drug Missionary to Merivale, and I am sorry.
"I am, dear Sir, your well-wisher,
"THE UNKNOWN."
Well, this good and mysterious letter Tudor posted, and the very next morning, curiously enough, he entirely ceased to want to collect for the Drug Missionary. In fact, from that moment he fell back quite into his usual way of looking at things, and, by the next evening, actually said he was sorry he had given Dr. Dunston back his glasses. But he was sorrier still three days later, for then a very shattering event indeed happened to Tudor. The Doctor sent for him, and he went without the least fear, to find his anonymous letter lying on the Doctor's desk.
I heard the whole amazing story afterwards. The Doctor asked him first if he had written the letter, and, being taken utterly unawares and frightfully fluttered at the shock, almost before he knew what he was doing, you may say, Tudor confessed that he had.
Then the Doctor told him how vain it was for any boy to seek to deceive him. He said: "You see how swiftly your sin has found you out, Tudor."
And Tudor admitted it had. He was now, of course, prepared for the worst, yet, as he told me, his chief feeling at that moment was not so much terror as a frightful longing to know how the Doctor had spotted him. Of course, he couldn't dare to ask, so he merely admitted that his sin certainly had found him out quicker than he expected; and then, rather craftily, he said he was glad it had.
Well, the Doctor didn't believe this; but he was not in a particularly severe mood that evening, strange to say, and he told Tudor exactly what had happened. He said:
"It may interest you to know, misguided boy, that mentioning your anonymous letter to Mr. Brown, and informing him that I had found my lost glasses in the spot indicated, he evinced a kindly concern, and even assured me that he would probably have no great difficulty in discovering the culprit. In the brief space of four-and-twenty hours he did so. Perceiving that the paper on which you wrote was obviously from a book of a certain folio, his first care was to ascertain, by comparisons of size, from what work it had come. Perceiving also that the paper was extraordinarily clean, he had no difficulty in concluding it was extracted from a new book. He then discovered that the page came from a Latin Delectus, and, on further inquiry, was able to learn that three copies of the work had recently been issued to members of the Lower Fourth. Pursuing his investigations, when the boys had retired to rest, he speedily marked down the mutilated volume in your desk, Tudor; and while I have already thanked him for his zeal and penetration, I feel little doubt that a time will come when, looking back on this dark page in your history, you will thank him also."
Well, Tudor didn't give his views about Brown, but he said the glasses had been very much on his mind, only he had not liked to return them without saying he was bitterly sorry. He told me afterwards that he was very nearly saying to Dr. Dunston that some boys would have returned the glasses without even an anonymous letter of regret; but fortunately he did not.