repeated the advertisement: 'Jack Poynter's friends believe him dead,
and are in great trouble: he is entreated to undeceive them. One word to
the old address will be a comfort to his poor sister.'

'That will do,' she answered, in a relieved tone. 'Etta cannot read
between the lines there. Oh, Ursula, do you think that Eric will see
them?'

I assured her that there was no doubt on the subject. All the better
class of workmen had access to some club or society, where they saw the
leading papers. I thought the _Daily Telegraph_ the most likely to meet
his eyes, and should continue to insert an advertisement from time to
time. 'We must be patient and wait a little,' I continued. 'Even if our
appeals do not reach him, there is every probability that Joe Muggins
or one of the other workmen will come across him. We want to find out
where Jack Poynter lives. I mean to write to Joe in a few days, and offer
him a handsome sum if he can tell me his address.'

'That will be the best plan; but, oh, Ursula, how am I to be patient?
To think of my dear boy becoming a common workman! he is poor, then; he
wants money. I feel as though I cannot rest, as though I must go to
London and look for him myself.'

Gladys looked so excited and feverish that I almost repented my
confidence. I did all I could to soothe her.

'Surely, dear, it is not so difficult to wait a little, knowing him to be
alive and well, as it was to bear that long suspense.'

'Oh, but I never believed him to be dead,' she answered quickly. 'I was
very anxious, very unhappy, about him, often miserable, but in my dreams
he was always full of life. When I woke up I said to myself, "They are
wrong; Eric is in the world somewhere; I shall see him again."'

'Just so; and now with my own eyes I have seen him, evidently in perfect
health and in good spirits.'

'Ah, but that troubles me a little,' she returned, and her beautiful
mouth began to quiver like an unhappy child's. 'How can Eric, my Eric who
loved me so, be so light-hearted, knowing that all these years I have
been mourning for him? I remember how he used,' she went on plaintively,
'to whistle over his work, and how Giles used to listen to him. Sometimes
they kept up a duet together, but Eric's note was the sweeter.'

'We must be careful not to misjudge him even in this,' was my answer:
'how do you know, Gladys, that he has not assured himself that you are
all well, and, as far as he knows, happy? Or perhaps h