Mr. Brimberly stared, coughed, and fumbled for his whisker, whence his hand wandered to his brow and hovered there.
"I—I bid you good night, sir!"
"Oh, by the way, bring me the letters."
"Certingly, sir!" and crossing the room, Mr. Brimberly returned, bearing a salver piled high with letters, which he set at his master's elbow; this done, he bowed and went from the room, one hand still at his dazed brow.
Left alone, Ravenslee took up the letters one by one. Some he threw aside, some few he opened and glanced at carelessly; among these last was a telegram, and the words he saw were these:
"Meet me to-morrow sunset in the wood all shall be explained Hermy."
For a while he sat staring at this, then, laying it by, drew out a letter case from which he took another telegram bearing precisely the same message. Having compared them, he thrust them into his pocket, and filling his pipe, sat awhile smoking and lost in thought. At last, his pipe being out, he rose, stretched, and turned toward the door, but in the act of leaving the room, paused to take out and compare the telegrams again and so stood with puckered brow.
"'Hermy!'" he said softly. "'Hermione' is so much prettier. 'All shall be explained.' A little trite, perhaps! Oh, well—" So saying, he folded up the telegrams, switched off the lights and went to bed.