Joyce, "and I'll explain it all. You remember last
night how I sat reading the newspaper,--first, just to tease you, and
afterward I really got interested in it? Well, I happened to be glancing
over the news about people who had just landed here from abroad, when a
little paragraph caught my eye. I can't remember the exact words but it
was something like this,--that among the passengers just arrived in New
York on the _Campania_ was Mr. _Fairfax Collingwood_, who was interested
in Western and Australian gold mines. He had not been here in the East
for nearly forty years, and it said how astounded he was at the
remarkable changes that had taken place during his long absence. Then it
went on to say that he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria for only a few
days, as he was just here on some important business, and was then going
to cross the continent, on his way back to Australia.

"Well, you'd better believe that I nearly jumped out of my skin at the
name--Fairfax Collingwood. It's an unusual one, and it didn't seem
possible that more than one person could have it, though of course it
might be a distant connection of the same family. And then, too, _our_
Fairfax Collingwood was dead. I didn't know what to think! I tried to
get your attention, but you were still as mad as you could be, so I
made up my mind I'd go home and puzzle over it by myself, and I took the
paper with me.

"After I got home, I sat and thought and _thought_! And all of a sudden
it occurred to me that perhaps he wasn't killed in the war after
all,--that there'd been some mistake. I've read that such things did
happen; but if it were so, I couldn't imagine why he didn't go and make
it up with his mother afterward. It seemed very strange. And then this
explanation dawned on me,--he had left that note for his mother, and
perhaps thought that if she really intended to forgive him, she'd have
made some effort to get word to him in the year that elapsed before he
was reported killed. Then, as she never did, he may have concluded that
it was all useless and hopeless, and he'd better let the report stand,
and he disappear and never come back. You see that article said he
hadn't been East here for forty years.

"And when I'd thought this out, an idea popped into my head. If what I'd
imagined was true, it didn't seem _right_ to let him go on thinking
that, when I knew that his mother never saw that letter, and I decided
I'd let him know it. So I sat right down