It was not till our hero reached Paris, on his return from the distant East, that the rumor I have just mentioned acquired an appreciable consistency.

Here, indeed, it took the shape of authentic information.
Among a number of delayed letters which had been awaiting him at his banker's he found a communication from Gordon Wright.

During the previous year or two his correspondence with this trusted--and trusting--friend had not been frequent, and Bernard had received little direct news of him.

Three or four short letters had overtaken him in his wanderings--letters as cordial, to all appearance, if not as voluminous, as the punctual missives of an earlier time.

Bernard made a point of satisfying himself that they were as cordial; he weighed them in the scales of impartial suspicion.