Alright. Ellory was willing to believe that, mostly because she'd missed Ben and she didn't want to risk never seeing or writing him again. It wasn't impossible for it to have been lost, things like that happened when you wrote people across the Atlantic.

"Alright," Ellory said. "You could have informed me after you arrived, though. That you are here, I mean. Or did they lock you up in a cell upon your return?" It was a joke, but then she added in a softer voice of true concern: "Everything is alright? They didn't Imperio you so you'd not write any girls or anything?"