"X. Y. Z."
"HAVE you been to call for letters to-day?" asked a woman, looking up
from her work with anxious eyes.
"No, I haven't," shortly answered the man addressed. "I can't always be
callin' there, ye know. It looks so queer."
"Not at all," answered the woman decidedly. "People must have letters,
and you buy your tobacco there. That's nonsense!"
"Not nonsense at all," answered the man. "I'm pretty near sick of it.
Here's a pretty go I've had this morning. I slipped down, and the
things you sent me for flew out of the basket—shoes and all—and the
folks next door helped to pick them up."
The woman glanced at him in dismay, but after a moment, her own anxiety
overcame even that, and she said slowly—
"James, I can't 'think' how it is there wasn't a letter the other day;
I do wish you had called there this morning."
"It's rubbish you're being so fidgety," said the man. "He's all right.
I tell you what it is, this is driving us into our graves. I'm near
sick of it."
He turned towards the little fire with his pipe, and the woman gathered
up some lilac print which she had been cutting out, and left the room.
"A living death," she said to herself, "and all for the want of a bit
of courage at the right time!"
Slowly she mounted to the top of the house, and taking a key from her
pocket, unlocked a door, letting herself in and locking it from the
inside again.
There was a little fire burning in the grate, protected by a cheap
nursery guard, and an unlighted candle was on the table beside a
work-basket.
On the floor were bricks and toys scattered hither and thither.
The woman glanced towards a small bed in the corner of the room, and
then lighted her candle and sat down by the fire with her work.
But ever and anon she buried her face in her hands, and pressed her
forehead with her fingers, as if to keep back thought.
"He said he would write without fail, every week, and it is three days
over the time now!"
She turned again restlessly to the light, and put her needle into the
print. Then with a sudden movement she folded that together and went
to a drawer, taking from it a worn pair of knickerbockers, which she
spread on the table, fitting on a patch carefully, and bending over
it with a certain look on her face that would have made an observer's
heart bleed—if he had had a tender heart.
"I 'can't' bear it," she whispered at last.
She put out her hand to extinguish the candle, when a low whistling was
heard on the stairs and a slow step came nearer and nearer.
She hastened to unlock the door, looking in the man's face and speaking
abruptly.
"You'll stay here a bit, James? I'm that uneasy that I can't bide here
at all. I must go to Oxford Street and see if there ain't a letter for
me."
"What, at this time o' night?" questioned the man. "It's ridiculous.
But do as you like; it don't matter either way, and you'll get a bit of
air."
He sat down by the fire and put his pipe in his mouth once more.
The woman went into an adjoining room to get her bonnet, and soon had
let herself noiselessly out of the front door, and was speeding towards
the high-road which led down from Hampstead to the more populated
districts of Camden Town.
It was not till she reached one of the main thoroughfares that she
aided her steps by entering a tram-car, and there her veiled face and
plain garments attracted no attention.
She alighted among the crowd when she reached Oxford Street, and
disappeared among them up one of the wide turnings.
By and by, she came to her destination, and on her inquiry, two letters
were handed over to her, and she turned away.
Both bore the Highgate postmark, but were in different handwriting. Yet
as the woman grasped them, she knew that her journey had not been in
vain.
She clasped her hand over the precious lines, addressed in a large
boyish hand to "X. Y. Z., Tobacconist, Dash Street." And without
apparently dreaming of opening them, she hurried out into the crowd
again, and was soon seated in a returning tram, speeding back whence
she came, and alighting where she had got in before.
At length, her weary walk over, she let herself into the house with a
latch-key, and passed quickly up the dark staircase.
In answer to her low whistle, the door up-stairs was noiselessly
unlocked, and she entered the room she had left nearly two hours ago.
"I've got it!" she exclaimed, sinking into the chair the man had left.
"Two?" he questioned.
And while with rather trembling fingers she broke the seal of her own,
he did the same by the second envelope.
Hers ran—
"Dear mother—I wish you'd come to see me; I ain't well, and the
master—"
That was all. The large lines only reached to the bottom of the page
and then stopped.
His ran—
"To X. Y. Z. Madam—Your boy has been taken suddenly ill, and I regret
to tell you that the doctor looks seriously upon his complaint. I
would have telegraphed, but your wish to keep your address from us has
precluded my doing so. Will you come at once? I am, etc., etc., Head
Master."
Both letters bore the date of two days before.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]