I can add no more now, my dear. For this money must be spent, and at once. Oh! precious, valuable gold, which is to keep Harold with me! I will write to you when we come back from Torquay; do not come to see me before, it would not be safe for you.
Ever, my dear friend, because of you, the happiest and most grateful mother on God's earth,
Charlotte Home.
Charlotte Harman's face was very white when, after reading this letter, she raised her eyes to Hinton's. What had been written with all joy and thankfulness was received with pain. Why had Hinton kept this thing from her? Why had he not told her where he had been staying?
"You kept a secret from me," she said, and her eyes filled with heavy tears.
Then as he tried to comfort her, being very compunctious himself at having failed utterly to trust one so brave and noble, she suddenly drew herself from his embrace.
"John," she said, with some pride in her voice, "did you in any degree keep this thing from me because you believed Mrs. Home's story about my grandfather's will?"
"I had a thousand nameless reasons for not telling you, Charlotte. My principal one after the child got ill was my fear that you would come to the house, and so run the risk of infection."
"Then you do not at all believe Mrs. Home's story?"
"I have not investigated it, my darling. I have done nothing but simply listen to what you yourself told me. You do not believe it?"