So Ravenslee washed and shaved and dressed, glancing now and then from
this transfigured Mulligan's to the fly-blown text upon the wall, and
once he laughed, though not very loudly to be sure, and once he hummed
a song and so fell to soft whistling, all of which was very strange in
Geoffrey Ravenslee.
The sun, it is true, radiates life and joy; before his beneficence gloom
and depression flee away, and youth and health grow strong to achieve
the impossible; even age and sickness, bathed in his splendour, may
forget awhile their burdens and dream of other days. Truly sunshine is a
thrice blessed thing. And yet, as Ravenslee tied the neckerchief about
his brawny throat, was it by reason of the sun alone that his grey eyes
were so bright and joyous and that he whistled so soft and merrily?
Having brushed his hair and settled his vivid-hued neckerchief to his
liking, he turned, and stooping over his humble bed, slipped a hand
beneath the tumbled pillow and drew thence a letter; a somewhat crumpled
missive, this, that he had borne about with him all the preceding day
and read and reread at intervals even as he proceeded to do now, as,
standing in the radiant sunbeams, he unfolded a sheet of very ordinary
note paper and slowly scanned these lines written in a bold, flowing
hand:
Dear Mr.
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