Jack, who had put on a deep violet toned velvet dressing gown over her underclothes, now sat down in an arm chair, leaning thoughtfully forward and resting her chin in the palm of her hand.

She did not intend to influence her husband; but having expressed her own thought, she quietly awaited his decision.

Frank, however, was worried and undecided. In order to think more clearly, he got up and began walking nervously up and down his room.

"I don't know what to do, Jack," he[133] argued. "If Bryan still lives he may, of course, recover and I would not then like to feel that I have pryed into his secret. On the other hand, you may be right and Bryan may have made some simple request of us which we could carry out for him at once. Bryan is a sentimental chap always. I wish, this time, he had been more explicit."

[133]

Nevertheless, Frank must have finally decided to accept his wife's point of view for, after another few moments, he walked over to a small safe which occupied a corner in his room and opened it. Then he took out the box in which he had placed Captain MacDonnell's letter and the next instant had broken the seal and was reading its contents.

Jack sat watching her husband's face, but offered no interruption.

She saw Frank first look surprised and then saw him flush and at last his expression hardened curiously. He then presented her with the letter.

"Read this, Jack. It is just as well that you should know what is in it. Bryan must have been considerably upset over his farewells and the thought of what might lie ahead of him, or he would never have made such a[134] request of us. He must have realized afterwards that the thing is impossible."

[134]

Jack read the letter, but there was nothing in it which seemed strange; certainly nothing impossible to her point of view. Bryan had simply requested that Frank allow her to come to him in case he was seriously injured. Bryan explained simply and boyishly that he had no women in his own family and that she was his closest woman friend. He had an absurd horror of dying with no woman near for whom he cared, or who cared for him.

"I don't see what you find impossible, Frank," Jack answered, placing the letter inside the envelope and quickly returning it. "I was only waiting until we heard more 

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