In the course of the afternoon, Godwin sat down to pen the rough draft of a letter to Lady Whitelaw.

When the first difficulties were surmounted, he wrote rapidly, and at considerable length.

It was not easy, at his time of life, to compress into the limits of an ordinary epistle all he wished to say to the widow of his benefactor.

His purpose was, with all possible respect yet as firmly as might be, to inform Lady Whitelaw that he could not spend the last of his proposed three years at the College in Kingsmill, and furthermore to request of her that she would permit his using the promised sum of money as a student at the Royal School of Mines.

This had to be done without confession of the reasons for his change of plan; he could not even hint at them.