Uncle Rik seated in Mr Wright’s drawing-room; Mr Wright in an easy-chair near the window; Mrs Wright—with much of the lustre¹ gone out of her fine eyes—lying languidly on the sofa; Madge Mayland at work on some incomprehensible piece of netting beside her aunt,—all in deep mourning.

 

Uncle Rik has just opened a telegram, at which he stares, open eyed and mouthed, without speaking, while his ruddy cheeks grow pale.

 

“Not bad news, I trust, brother,” said poor Mrs Wright, to whom the worst news had been conveyed when she heard of the wreck² of the Triton. Nothing could exceed that, she felt, in bitterness.

 

“What is it, Rik?” said Mr Wright, anxiously.

 

“Oh! nothing—nothing. That is to say, not bad news, certainly, but amazing news. Boh! I’m a fool.”

 

He stopped short after this complimentary³ assertion, for uncle Rik had somewhere read or heard that joy can kill, and he feared to become an accomplice⁵ in a murder.

 

“Come, Rik, don’t keep us in suspense,” said his brother, rising; “something has happened.”

 

“O yes, something has indeed happened,” cried Rik, “for this telegram is from Sam Shipton.”

 

“Then Robin⁶ is alive!” cried Mrs Wright, leaping up, while Madge turned perfectly⁷ white.

 

“No—that is to say—yes—it may be so—of course must be so—for,—bah! what an ass⁴ I am! Listen.”

 

He proceeded to read Sam’s telegram, while Mrs Wright covered her face with her hands and sank trembling on the sofa.

 

The telegram having suffered rather severe mutilation at the hands of the foreigners by whom it was transmitted, conveyed a very confusing idea of the facts that were intended, but the puzzling over it by the whole party, and the gradual, though not perfect,

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