She was seated on a sofa at the far end of the room when Seymour Michael
was shown in, and the first thing that struck her was his diminutiveness.
After the hearty country gentlemen who habitually carried mud into the
Stagholme drawing-room, this small-limbed dapper soldier of fortune
looked almost puny. But there is a depth in every woman's heart which is
only to be reached by one man. Whatever betide them both, that one is
different from the rest all through life.

Neither of these two persons spoke until the servant had closed the door.
Then, as is usual in such cases, the more indifferent spoke first.

"Why did you never write to me?" said Seymour Michael, fixing his
mournful glance on her face.

"Because I thought you were dead."

"You never got my letter contradicting the report?"

"No," she answered, with so cheap a cunning that it deceived him.

"And," he went on, with the heartlessness of a small man, for large men
respect woman with a deeper chivalry than every puny knight yet
compassed, "and you did not trouble to inquire. You did not even give me
six months' grace to cool in my grave."

"How did you send your letter?" she asked, with a suppressed excitement
which he misread entirely.

"By the usual route. I wrote off at once."