My reason for troubling you
with this communication is that during the last six months I have
noticed a very painful change in your father. He is getting very
old--he has no one but servants about him. You know his manner--it
is difficult for any one to approach him, even for me. If you could
come home--by accident--I think that you will never regret it in
after life. I need not suggest discretion as to this letter. Your
affectionate friend,
"CAROLINE CANTOURNE."
Jack Meredith read this letter in the coffee-room of the Hotel of
the Four Seasons at Wiesbaden. It was a lovely morning--the sun
shone down through the trees of the Friedrichstrasse upon that
spotless pavement, of which the stricken wot; the fresh breeze came
bowling down from the Taunus mountains all balsamic and
invigorating--it picked up the odours of the Seringa and flowering
currant in the Kurgarten, and threw itself in at the open window of
the coffee-room of the Hotel of the Four Seasons.
Jack Meredith was restless. Such odours as are borne on the morning
breeze are apt to make those men restless who have not all that they
want. And is not their name legion? The morning breeze is to the
strong the moonlight of the sentimental. That which makes one
vaguely yearn incites the other to get up and take.
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