“They was indeed,” agreed Sam. “Say, would you mind looking at them letters again to make sure, Mr. Bently? No? Don't it beat all why she don't hear from him! Well, I must be getting along, she's waiting for me. You think there is some sort of a slim chance that the letters are lost? It will be a comfort for them to think that. Indians, maybe?”
“No, I wouldn't say a word about Indians, Sam,” objected Mr. Bently hastily.
“Well, then, they are just lost, you reckon.”
“That may be, Sam, I don't say it's so, but the western mails are very oncertain. They probably had to give their letters to some party that was coming East, and they may have lost them.”
“Then I'd like to put my hands on the cuss that done it! I'd make him jump clean out of his skin to get shut of me.”
The honest fellow galloped back to the farm through the mud, and in the face of a cold rain that drenched him to the skin. It was early candle-light when he entered the lane, and he walked his horse up the strip of soggy turf while he meditated on what he should tell Mrs. Landray. The storm had driven her from the porch, but as he turned the corner of the house on his way to the barn he saw her face at the library window, and merely shook his head.
When he had stabled and fed his horse he hurried into the kitchen. Martha, his wife, met him with a look of inquiry on her broad, good-natured face.
“No letters?” she asked, and he answered her with her own words, “No letters.”
“There's a drink of brandy for you, Sam,” she said. “Mrs. Landray wanted you should have it.”
Sam stalked to the table and emptied the glass at a swallow.