Finally he took a penny from his waistcoat pocket and tossed up for it.
"Heads I write, tails I leave it alone."
He tossed badly and the penny came down in the waste-paper basket, but it came down heads, and with a little lugubrious grimace, Sangster dipped the pen in the ink again and squared his elbows.
He wrote the letter four times before it suited him, and even then it seemed a pretty poor epistle to his critical eye as he read it through—
"Dear Mrs. Challoner,—I am just writing to let you know that Jimmy is ill; nothing very serious, but I thought that perhaps you would like to know. If you could spare the time to come and see him, I am sure he would very much appreciate it. He seems very down on his luck. I don't want to worry or alarm you, and am keeping an eye on him myself, but thought it only right that you should know.—Your sincere friend,
"RALPH SANGSTER."
It seemed a clumsy enough way of explaining things, he thought discontentedly, and yet it was the best he could do. He folded the paper and put it into the envelope; he sat for a moment with it in his hand looking down at Christine's married name, "Mrs. James Challoner."
Poor little Mrs. Jimmy! A wife, and yet no wife. Sangster lifted the envelope to his lips, and hurriedly kissed the name before he thrust the envelope into his pocket, and went out to post it.
Would she come, he wondered? he asked himself the question anxiously before he dropped the letter into the box. Somehow deep down in his heart he did not think that she would.