Ralph went below burning with a sense of futile rage. It was useless to rebel, however, for on a ship a boy is the most helpless of creatures.
As he moodily arranged things in the captain's stateroom, wondering for the hundreth time why Gary should appear to wish to persecute him after having been so courteous at Savannah, Ralph's eye fell on an open letter lying on the floor before the half open door of a small iron safe. Evidently Gary, in his haste or excitement over the approach of the warship, had left the safe in this condition. The letter had probably fallen there unnoticed.
Ralph picked it up, intending to lay it on the table, when a certain familiarity in the handwriting struck him as peculiar and he started to read the contents.
"My dear Cousin:—" it began; but after getting thus far the boy threw the sheet down upon the table.
"Why should I be reading the captain's letters?" thought he, and a flush of shame crept momentarily to his forehead. "And yet—it doesn't seem to be the one I gave him."
He remembered that Shard had mentioned an intention to write Gary by mail.
As Ralph hesitated, a desire strengthened within him to read further, despite the monitions of conscience. A vague idea that the strange and contradictory behavior of Gary might be explained was perhaps at the bottom of the lad's mental persistence.
He hesitated until his fingers burned, then made a sudden grasp at the letter.