It passed off well enough. Neal returned to the pantry, and finished the perusal of the captain's letter. Then he refolded it, placed the note, which he had not opened, inside as before, and amended the fastening with a modicum of sealing-wax, dropped artistically underneath the old seal.
He was at his wit's end how to convey the letter to the doctor, so that no suspicion might rest upon himself. Suppress it he dare not, for the postman could have testified to its delivery when inquiries were made. He was coming to the conclusion that the best way would be to put it amidst the shrubs, as if he or the postman had dropped it, and let somebody find it and convey it to Dr. Davenal, when the postman's knock at the hall door aroused him.
"I don't know how I came to overlook this," said the man, handing in a letter. "It had got slipped among the others somehow, and I didn't find it till I was ever so far down the street." If ever Neal believed in the descent of special favours from the clouds, he believed in it then. The letter brought back by the postman was directed to Watton. Neal carried it to his panty, deposited the other upon his silver waiter, and took it to the breakfast-room.
"How's this?" cried the doctor.
"The letter-man carried it away with him, sir, by some mistake, he says," answered Neal with a steady tongue and unflinching eye.
"Stupid fellow!" cried the doctor. But he spoke in a good-natured tone. None, save he, knew how welcome a sight was the handwriting of his son.
And when Neal carried down the breakfast-things he coolly told Watton there was a letter for her lying in his pantry, which had come by the morning post.
"You might have brought it down," was Watton's answer.
"So I might," civilly remarked Neal. "I laid it there and forgot it."