"My dear boy, what a horrible fright you gave me! Your letters came every day for a week, then they stopped. I waited two days, thinking you had gone to some other place, then I telegraphed. You were ill. You can imagine how I hurried here, with Henry to take care of me. And what do you think I found? Such a curious state of affairs. Do you know that these Acadiens hated you at first?"
"Yes, I remember that."
"But when you fell ill, that young man, Agapit, installed himself as your nurse. They spoke of getting a Sister of Charity, but had some scruples, thinking you might not like it, as you are a Protestant. Mrs. de Forêt closed her inn; she would receive no guests, lest they might disturb you. She and her cousin nursed you. They got an English doctor to drive twelve miles every day,—they thought you would prefer him to a French one. Then her little boy fell ill; he said the young man Agapit had hurt you. They thought he would die, for he had brain fever. He called all the time for you, and when he had lucid intervals, they could only convince him you were not dead by bringing him in, and putting him in this cot. Really, it was a most deplorable state of affairs. But the charming part is that they thought you were a pauper. When I arrived, they were thunderstruck. They had not opened your trunk, which you left locked, though they said they would have done so if I had not come, for they feared you might die, and they wanted to get the addresses of your friends, and every morning, my dear boy, for three days after you were taken ill, you started up at nine o'clock, the time that queer, red postman used to come,—and wrote a letter to me."
Mrs. Nimmo paused, hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears. "It almost broke my heart when I heard it,—to think of you rousing yourself every day from your semi-unconsciousness to write to your mother. I cannot forgive myself for letting you go away without me."
"Why did they not write from here to you?" asked Vesper.
"They did not know I was your mother. I don't think they looked at the address of the letters you had sent. They thought you were poor, and an adventurer."
"Why did they not write to The Evening News?"
"My dear boy, they were doing everything possible for you, and they would have written in time."
"You have, of course, told them that they shall suffer no loss by all this?"