When he told her of the cause
that had suspended his literary occupation, she listened, with
the sensation of the kiss still lingering in her downcast eyes
and her smiling lips, until he came to the subject of his Diary
and its reference to the newspaper.
As he mentioned the name of the _Times_ she altered and looked
him straight in the face gravely.
"Can you suggest any plan, love," he went on, "which may save me
the necessity of a journey to London at this bleak time of the
year? I must positively have this information, and, so far as I
can see, London is the only place at which I can hope to meet
with a file of the _Times_."
"A file of the _Times?_" she repeated.
"Yes--of eight years since," he said.
The instant the words passed his lips he saw her face overspread
by a ghastly paleness; her eyes fixed on him with a strange
mixture of rigidity and vacancy in their look; her hands, with
her work held tight in them, dropped slowly on her lap, and a
shiver ran through her from head to foot.
He sprang to his feet, and snatched the smelling-salts from her
work-table, thinking she was going to faint. She put the bottle
from her, when he offered it, with a hand that thrilled him with
the deadly coldness of its touch, and said, in a whisper:
"A sudden chill, dear--let me go upstairs and lie down.
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