"Lovely. It is Midsummer Eve. I have been out at work these two hours."
"Adam, I think that must be the postman's step," she remarked presently. "Some one is going round to the door."
"From Karl, perhaps," he said with indifference, for he had plunged into his book again.
Hewitt came in; one letter only on the silver waiter. He presented it to his master. Adam, absorbed in his pages, took the letter and laid it on the table without looking up. Something very like a cry from his mother startled him. She had caught up the letter and was gazing at the address. For it was one that had never before been seen there.
"Sir Adam Andinnian, Bart."
"Oh my son! It has come at last."
" What has come?" cried he in surprise. "Oh, I see:--Sir Joseph must be dead. Poor old fellow! What a sad thing!"
But it was not exactly Sir Joseph's death that Mrs. Andinnian had been thinking of. The letter ran as follows:--
"FOXWOOD, June 22nd.
"DEAR SIR,-I am truly sorry to have to inform you of the death of my old friend and many years' patient, Sir Joseph Andinnian. He had been getting better slowly, but we thought surely; and his death at the last was sudden and quite unexpected. I have taken upon myself to give a few necessary orders in anticipation of your arrival here.