In the old butler's
hand was a silver card tray, and on the tray was--but there was no need
to look on the tray, old Jason's face, curiously mingling excitement and
disquiet, the imperturbability of the butler gone for the nonce, was
alone quite eloquent enough. But Jimmie Dale, master of many things, was
most of all master of himself.
"Well, Jason?" His voice was quiet and contained as he spoke. He reached
out and took from the tray a white, unaddressed envelope. It was from
her, of course--even Jason knew that it was another of those mysterious
epistles, one of the many that had passed through the old butler's
hands, that had in the last few years so completely revolutionised, as
it were, his, Jimmie Dale's, mode of life. "Well, Jason?" He was toying
with the envelope in his hand. "How did it come this time?"
"It was in another envelope, Master Jim, sir--addressed to me, sir,"
explained the old butler nervously. "A messenger boy brought it, sir. I
opened the outside envelope, Master Jim, and--and I knew at once, sir,
that--that it was one of those letters."
"I see." Jimmie Dale smiled a little mirthlessly. What, after all, did
the "how" of it matter? It was a foregone conclusion that, as it had
been a hundred times before, it would avail him nothing so far as
furnishing a clue to her whereabouts was concerned! "Very well, Jason.
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