“I would like to thank you for your kindness and comradeship to me during the voyage. Those days will ever remain as a golden memory to me.
“Having in mind your words when we lunched together in the garden of that little hotel at Teneriffe, I dare to inscribe myself,
“Always your friend,
“Antony Gray.”
It was not the letter he longed to write, yet he dared not write more explicitly. Honour forbade the smallest hint at the strange position in which he found himself; diffidence held him back from writing the words his heart was crying to her. Bald and flat as he felt the letter to be, he could do no better. It must go as it stood. He headed it with the address of his present rooms, giving his landlady instructions to forward all letters to the post office at Byestry.
One letter, bearing a Scottish postmark, alone came for him after his departure. It remained for close on two months on the table of the dingy little hall. Then, fearing lest Antony’s receipt of it should betray her own carelessness, Mrs. Dobbin consigned it unopened to the kitchen fire.