Hitherto there had been a simple obvious explanation for every
unusual event that had occurred during the last three or four
days; but this last circumstance in connection with the letters
was not to be accounted for. Nevertheless, even now, it was not
distrust of his wife that was busy at his mind--he was too fond
of her and too proud of her to feel it--the sensation was more
like uneasy surprise. He longed to go and question her, and get a
satisfactory answer, and have done with it. But there was a voice
speaking within him that had never made itself heard before--a
voice with a persistent warning in it, that said, Wait; and look
at your letters first.
He spread them out on the table with hands that trembled he knew
not why. Among them was the back number of the _Times_ for which
he had written to London, with a letter from the publisher
explaining the means by which the copy had been procured.
He opened the newspaper with a vague feeling of alarm at finding
that those letters to the editor which he had been so eager to
read, and that perfecting of the mutilated volume which he had
been so anxious to accomplish, had become objects of secondary
importance in his mind. An inexplicable curiosity about the
general contents of the paper was now the one moving influence
which asserted itself within him, he spread open the broad sheet
on the table.
Pages:
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