The natural plea of shaken health excused him to his constituents, many of whom favoured him with their unsolicited correspondence.

(He had three or four long letters from Mr.Chown, who thought it necessary to keep the borough member posted in the course of English politics.) From Glazzard he heard twice, with cheerful news.
"How it happened," he had written to his newly-married friend, in telling of Lilian's death, "I will explain some day; I cannot speak of it yet." Glazzard's response was full of manly sympathy.

"I don't pretend," wrote the connoisseur, "that I am ideally mated, but my wife is a good girl, and I understand enough of happiness in marriage to appreciate to the full how terrible is your loss.

Let confidences be for the future; if they do not come naturally, be assured I shall never pain you by a question." Denzil's book had now been for several weeks before the public; it would evidently excite little attention.

"A capital present for a schoolboy," was one of the best things the critics had yet found to say of it.