Hazel, from where she stood, could see everything that passed, and that Chute stretched out his hand to take a large blue envelope from the postman’s hand; but this the rustic official refused to allow. He, however, permitted the schoolmaster to peruse the address, and that of another letter, before going on with his delivery.
Hazel felt that he was coming there, and she opened the door in time to stop his heavy thump.
“Two letters, miss—big ’un and little ’un,” he said, thrusting the missives into her hand. The next moment Hazel was reading the directions, both of which were to her mother.
One was from Mr Geringer—she knew his hand well. The other, the large blue envelope, was probably from Percy’s employer. She had expected that letter; and, yes, there were the names on the back, stamped in blue letters in an oval, “Suthers, Rubley, and Spark.”
Hazel stood hesitating as to what course she should pursue. She held in her hands, she knew, the explanation of Percy’s return home. If the letters contained painful revelations her mother would suffer terribly. Ought she to let her see the news without reading it first?
Of late all the correspondence had fallen to her share, and Mrs Thorne, when a letter had arrived, had been in the habit of saying, “Open that, Hazel, and see what it is.”
She hesitated a few minutes, and then opened the blue envelope.
The letter was short and stern in its diction, saying that knowing Mrs Thorne to be a lady of good family, and one who had suffered much trouble, the firm had felt it to be their duty to write to her before taking further proceedings with respect to her son, who had, they regretted to say, abused the confidence placed in him, and been guilty of embezzlement, to what amount they were not prepared to state.
Hazel stood with her brow wrinkled, gazing straight before her for some minutes before, with a weary sigh, she opened the second letter—Mr Geringer’s—which endorsed the information contained in the first, and finished as follows:—
“It is very terrible, my dear Mrs Thorne; and, for my poor friend’s sake, I deeply regret that his son should so soon have shown a disposition to go wrong. It comes the harder on me because I was the cause of his going to these people, who took him entirely upon my recommendation. I regret your position, of course, and beg to assure you of my deep sympathy. Had we been related by marriage, I should have felt it my duty to see the lad through his difficulty, the result, I find, of folly, he having entered upon a course of betting upon horses. As it is, you must excuse me for saying that my credit will not allow of my having my name mixed up with the transaction.”