XVII There was a letter waiting on the mat when James got back to the Mews that evening. He hadn’t ever seen the writing before, and his heart gave a jump, because he guessed at once that it was from Sally. He ran upstairs, switched on the light, and sat down on the edge of the trap to read the letter. It was from Sally, and it began: “Oh, James—” And then there was a blot, and James’s heart gave another thump, but not such a pleasant one, because the blot had every appearance of having been made by a tear, and why should Sally cry if everything was all right? And what sort of letter was it that began “Oh, James”? He went past the blot and found out. “Oh, James, we mustn’t—I know we mustn’t really, and then you kissed me, and everything felt different, and I thought we could”—there were three little blots here very close together—“but we can’t, and we mustn’t see each other again, and you mustn’t write. It can’t go on being so bad when we’ve only seen each other three times.
