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476 to lose it. And no man could tell yet if that would be so or not.

And then, one day, the test of all which he had been learning and thinking came on him suddenly with Hensham's announcement that a trader was going up to the South next day.

"He can be trusted to take letters," said Hensham. "I'm sending some, and of course you'll want to send a line to your folks."

Dick's smile was bitter for a moment. His folks had forgotten him long ago.

"Thanks," he said. "I must write Regina, anyway. It will months yet before I can travel."

"I'm afraid so. Of course it's awfully jolly for us having you here, and I really do believe that foot will get fairly right, you know. You are a trump of a patient, Heriot. I'd be growling and cursing about it all day."

Dick's lips twitched a little. Perhaps some day Hensham would learn that there are things which go too deep for outside comment.

"You'd probably bundle me out if I did," he said. "I might as well write now, before Baskerville comes to do my foot."

"Of course I've put this business in my report," said Hensham. "I wish we had been able to find that poor girl's body, you know. I guess I'd be glad to know that she was properly buried. Of course we haven't a notion how many days you traveled after you'd left her. If you'd been keeping your diary to the last as young Grahame did"

"Yes. It was an oversight, wasn't it? You might hand me the pen and paper. Thanks."

For a little while after Hensham had gone he sat still with his lips set and his eyes unusually sad and soft. He knew what he was going to write. He had come to the decision through too fierce a fight not to know it. And he was not coward enough to retract now. But a little shudder ran through him as he took up the pen. He was going to do the hardest thing that his life had demanded of him yet. He wrote a short letter to the Commisioner [sic], and a long one to Jennifer. But the gist of both was the same.