'A letter from Daisy,' he said. They had not replied to her first letter, and since then had heard nothing.
'Give it me,' said his wife.
He drew it quickly towards him, with an instinctive gesture of retention.
'It's addressed to me.'
'Well, then, you'd better open it.'
He looked up at his wife; he wanted to take the letter away and read it alone, but her eyes were upon him, compelling him there and then to open it.
'She wants to come back,' he said in a broken voice.
Mrs Griffith snatched the letter from him.
'That means he's left her,' she said.
The letter was all incoherent, nearly incomprehensible, covered with blots, every other word scratched out. One could see that the girl was quite distraught, and Mrs Griffith's keen eyes saw the trace of tears on the paper.... It was a long, bitter cry of repentance. She begged them to take her back, repeating again and again the cry of penitence, piteously beseeching them to forgive her.