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<h2> CHAPTER X. OF THE LETTER WHICH CAME FROM THE HALL </h2>
<p>Having thrown this side-light upon my narrative, I can now resume the
statement of my own personal experiences. These I had brought down, as the
reader will doubtless remember, to the date of the arrival of the
savage-looking wanderer who called himself Corporal Rufus Smith. This
incident occurred about the beginning of the month of October, and I find
upon a comparison of dates that Dr. Easterling's visit to Cloomber
preceded it by three weeks or more.</p>
<p>During all this time I was in sore distress of mind, for I had never seen
anything either of Gabriel or of her brother since the interview in which
the general had discovered the communication which was kept up between us.
I had no doubt that some sort of restraint had been placed upon them; and
the thought that we had brought trouble on their heads was a bitter one
both to my sister and myself.</p>
<p>Our anxiety, however, was considerably mitigated by the receipt, a couple
of days after my last talk with the general, of a note from Mordaunt
Heatherstone. This was brought us by a little, ragged urchin, the son of
one of the fishermen, who informed us that it had been handed to him at
the avenue gate by an old woman—who, I expect, must have been the
Cloomber cook.</p>
<p>"MY DEAREST FRIENDS," it ran, "Gabriel and I have grieved to think how
concerned you must be at having neither heard from nor seen us. The fact
is that we are compelled to remain in the house. And this compulsion is
not physical but moral.</p>
<p>"Our poor father, who gets more and more nervous every day, has entreated
us to promise him that we will not go out until after the fifth of
October, and to allay his fears we have given him the desired pledge. On
the other hand, he has promised us that after the fifth—that is, in
less than a week—we shall be as free as air to come or go as we
please, so we have something to look forward to.</p>
<p>"Gabriel says that she has explained to you that the governor is always a
changed man after this particular date, on which his fears reach a crisis.
He apparently has more reason than usual this year to anticipate that
trouble is brewing for this unfortunate family, for I have never known him
to take so many elaborate precautions or appear so thoroughly unnerved.
Who would ever think, to see his bent form and his shaking hands, that he
is the same man who used some few short years ago to shoot tigers on foot
among the jungles of the Terai, and would laugh at the more timid
sportsmen who sought the protection of their elephant's howdah?</p>
<p>"You know that he has the Victoria Cross, which he won in the streets of
Delhi, and yet here he is shivering with terror and starting at every
noise, in the most peaceful corner of the world. Oh, the pity of it. West!
Remember what I have already told you—that it is no fanciful or
imaginary peril, but one which we have every reason to suppose to be most
real. It is, however, of such a nature that it can neither be averted nor
can it profitably be expressed in words. If all goes well, you will see us
at Branksome on the sixth.</p>
<p>"With our fondest love to both of you, I am ever, my dear friends, your
attached</p>
<p>"MORDAUNT."</p>
<p>This letter was a great relief to us as letting us know that the brother
and sister were under no physical restraint, but our powerlessness and
inability even to comprehend what the danger was which threatened those
whom we had come to love better than ourselves was little short of
maddening.</p>
<p>Fifty times a day we asked ourselves and asked each other from what
possible quarter this peril was to be expected, but the more we thought of
it the more hopeless did any solution appear.</p>
<p>In vain we combined our experiences and pieced together every word which
had fallen from the lips of any inmate of Cloomber which might be supposed
to bear directly or indirectly upon the subject.</p>
<p>At last, weary with fruitless speculation, we were fain to try to drive
the matter from our thoughts, consoling ourselves with the reflection that
in a few more days all restrictions would be removed, and we should be
able to learn from our friends' own lips.</p>
<p>Those few intervening days, however, would, we feared, be dreary, long
ones. And so they would have been, had it not been for a new and most
unexpected incident, which diverted our minds from our own troubles and
gave them something fresh with which to occupy themselves.</p>
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