“Before I give you these,” he said, earnestly to Roderick, “you must pledge yourself to give up all thoughts of marriage with your cousin. Oh! I exact no formal oath. A man’s word should be as good as his bond! Did I not still trust you to this extent, I should act very differently.”
Roderick held out his hand.
“I promise,” he said, with some show of emotion; then he eyed the letters greedily.
For one moment Hugh faltered in his determination. His fingers closed upon the packet; then he fulfilled his promise to his dead patient, and handed them to the man she had so fatally loved.
The captain glanced at the superscription, then at the seal; then he turned upon Hugh, his blue eyes aflame with anger.
“Good God! you have been lying!” he cried, wrathfully. “This is her seal—I know it—unbroken, and you said you had read the letters!”
He positively trembled with rage, and gnawed his fair moustache as he pushed the packet down into the inner breast-pocket of his coat.
“I made no such statement, Captain Pym,” said Hugh, calmly, leaning up against the mantelpiece and watching the young man’s ignoble exhibition of feeling. “I inferred that you might be the writer of them—that was all. The cap fitted, and you yourself voluntarily acknowledged their contents.”
“If you had been straightforward,” said Roderick, fiercely, “I should have been so, also. Now, look to yourself! This is my last word to you;” and seizing his hat, he hurried from the room.