ONE:We shall let the boys tell the story, which they did in a letter to their friends at home. It was written while they were on the steamer between Tien-tsin and Shanghai, on their return from Pekin.He smiled at her.
TWO:But Gregg took little notice of the interruption. "Once you have grasped this idea of a new sort of relativity," he continued, "once you have realised that the Clockwork man behaves in accordance with laws quite different to our own, you can proceed to find some basis for such a phenomenon. The Clockwork man behaves in a certain manner; therefore there must be some cause, however improbable it may appear to us, to account for such behaviour. Now, what is the cause of ordinary human action? It is something equally unaccountable. We can explain it in terms of a system, of a series of processes, but we do not really know what is the secret spring upon which the human animal moves. We can describe the machinery of the human body, but we do not really know what life is, or what is the real nature of the force that produces our actions. So far we know as much about the Clockwork man as we do about ourselves. The difference is confined to processes.""Yes," exclaimed Camille as the three candle-bearers gathered close, "that's your mother's writing," and as we fell into marching order again, with the lights still in the front files, I opened it. It was thick and soft with sheet after sheet of thinnest paper. With these was a sealed letter, unaddressed, containing in one corner what seemed to be a ring. Around all was a sheet of writing of later date than any other. Wonderful, my mother's lines declared, was the Providence that had brought her wounded boy among such priceless friends; and wonderful that same Providence that now gave her the chance to send three weeks' daily letters in one, and to send them by a hand so sure that she ventured to add this other note, a matter so secret that it must be delivered only by my own hands, or hands which I could trust as my own, to Charlotte Oliver. We glanced back in search of Charlotte. She and Ferry were well in the rear of the procession, moving with laggard steps, she lighting his page with a borrowed candle, and he evidently reading not his orders, but the Federal surgeon's letter. "Oh, don't speak yet," murmured Camille, "let them alone!"
