Jean walked on, Harry Garlett’s letter, still unopened, in her hand, till she came to a little wood which she knew would be almost certainly deserted.
Once in the now leafless wilderness, she began walking slowly, her feet sinking into the sodden, fallen leaves, longing and yet dreading to know what Harry had written to her.
At last she slowly opened the square, official-looking envelope. Written across the top were the words: “Read and passed by J.C. Brackbury, Governor of H.M. Prison, Grendon.”
She was used to that sentence, but somehow today the pain and shame that such a letter as she supposed she was going to read, an intimate love-letter, should have been seen by any other eyes than her own, brought a new anguish.
She unfolded the big, plain sheet of notepaper, and at once she sa
