Page:In the days of the comet.djvu/153

 name had left no impression. I could distinguish--

IAP AMP

And very faintly below D.S.O.

I guessed the name in an instant flash of intuition. It was Shaphambury. The very gaps shaped that to my mind. Perhaps in a sort of semi-visibility other letters were there, at least hinting themselves. It was a place somewhere on the east coast, I knew, either in Norfolk or Suffolk.

"Why!" I cried--and stopped.

What was the good of telling him?

Old Stuart had glanced up sharply, I am inclined to think almost fearfully, into my face. "You--you haven't got it?" he said.

Shaphambury--I should remember that.

"You don't think you got it?" he said.

I handed the envelope back to him.

"For a moment I thought it might be Hampton," I said.

"Hampton," he repeated. "Hampton. How could you make Hampton?" He turned the envelope about. "H.A.M.--why, Willie, you're a worse hand at the job than me!"

He replaced the letter in the envelope and stood erect to put it back in his breast pocket.