Apology

It was not from any lack of confidence in your discretion that I kept silent, Doctor. My brother Sherlock has never been an enthusiastic correspondent, and I promise you that wandering the world on his own gave him no impetus to correct his indolent habit. Such news as he did send me was usually political, not personal. I once spent five months waiting to learn if he had avoided a nasty end in the Himalayan snows, only to be dunned with a beggarly telegram of four words from Egypt.

Why give you hope of his return when I had none?

Apology

It was not from any lack of confidence in your discretion that I kept silent, Doctor. My brother Sherlock has never been an enthusiastic correspondent, and I promise you that wandering the world on his own gave him no impetus to correct his indolent habit. Such news as he did send me was usually political, not personal. I once spent five months waiting to learn if he had avoided a nasty end in the Himalayan snows, only to be dunned with a beggarly telegram of four words from Egypt.

Why give you hope of his return when I had none?