And he saw the chance he had not taken like a flash of far, elusive sunlight on the sky-line of a troubled sea.
The vision passed.

He laid down the letter and took up his own correspondence.

One of the letters was from England.

He poured out his drink and flung himself down to read it.
It came from the only relation he possessed in the world--his brother.
Bernard Monck was the elder by fifteen years--a man of brilliant capabilities, who had long since relinquished all idea of worldly advancement in the all-absorbing interest of a prison chaplaincy.

They had not met for over five years, but they maintained a regular correspondence, and every month brought to Everard Monck the thin envelope directed in the square, purposeful handwriting of the man who had been during the whole of his life his nearest and best friend.