Afterwards he
made his way towards the tea-table. A little throbbing cry had
broken from Helen's lips.
"Philippa," she exclaimed, "it's from Dick! It's Dick's handwriting!"
Philippa's reply was incoherent. She was tearing open her own
envelope. With a well-satisfied smile, the bearer of these
communications seized a sandwich in one hand and poured himself out
some tea with the other. He ate and drank with the restraint of
good-breeding, but with a voracity which gave point to his plea of
starvation. A few yards away, the breathless silence between the
two women had given place to an almost hysterical series of
disjointed exclamations.
"It's from Dick!" Helen repeated. "It's his own dear handwriting.
How shaky it is! He's alive and well, Philippa, and he's found a
friend."
"I know--I know," Philippa murmured tremulously. "Our parcels have
been discovered, and he got them all at once. Just fancy, Helen,
he's really not so ill, after all!"
They drew a little closer together.
"You read yours out first," Helen proposed, "and then I'll read mine."
Philippa nodded. Her voice here and there was a little uncertain.
MY DEAREST SISTER,
I have heard nothing from you or Helen for so long that I was
really getting desperate. I have had a very rough time here,
but by the grace of Providence I stumbled up against an old
friend the other day, Bertram Maderstrom, whom you must have
heard me speak of in my college days.
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