“Thanks, very much. I will, with pleasure. And will you do me a favour? I left a letter on the reading-room table—”
A sudden and peremptory order of some sort caused a rush which separated Miles from the visitor and cut short the sentence, and the necessity for the immediate departure of all visitors rendered its being finished impossible.
But Miss Robinson’s representative did not require to be told that a forgotten letter could only want posting. On returning, therefore, to the Institute, she went at once to the reading-room, where she found no letter! Making inquiry, she learned from one of the maids that a sheet of paper had been found with nothing on it but the words, “Dearest mother, I’m so sorry”; and that the same had been duly conveyed to Miss Robinson’s room. Hasting to the apartment of her friend, she knocked, and was bidden enter.
“You have got an unfinished letter, it seems?” she began.
“Yes; here it is,” interrupted Miss Robinson, handing the sheet to her assistant. “What a pity that it gives no clew to the writer—no address!”
“I am pretty sure as to the writer,” returned the other. “It must have been that fine-looking young soldier, John Miles, of whom we have seen a little and heard so much from Sergeant Gilroy.”
Hereupon an account was given of the hurried and interrupted meeting on board the troop-ship; and the two ladies came to the conclusion that as nothing was known about the parents or former residence of John Miles no steps of any kind were possible. The letter was therefore carefully put by.
That same evening there alighted at the railway station in Portsmouth an elderly lady with an expression of great anxiety on her countenance, and much perturbation in her manner.
“Any luggage, ma’am?” asked a sympathetic porter—for railway porters are sometimes more sympathetic than might be expected of men so much accustomed to witness abrupt and tender partings.
“No; no luggage. Yes—a small valise—in the carriage. That’s it.”