"Can this be true? Lina, poor little Lina, can this be real? and Ralph, my own son. Great Heavens, it is terrible!"
He swept a hand across his forehead, distractedly. Then, starting up, as if stung to action by some agonizing thought, he began to pace up and down the room with a degree of excitement very unusual to him. At length he paused by the window, and, opening the note, again read it over and over with great anxiety. At last he went to a desk standing in a corner of the room, and opening one secret drawer after another, drew forth a bundle of faded letters. As he untied them, the identical perfume that hung about the note he had been reading, stole around him; and, turning paler and paler, as if the odor made him faint, he began to read the letters, one after another, comparing them first with the note, and then with a key to the cypher in which they were all written, that he took from another compartment of the desk.
At last he drew a deep breath, and wearily folded the papers up.
"This is plausible, and it may be true," he said, locking his hands on the table. "The persistent malice of the thing, confirms its probability. She was capable of it—capable of anything; and yet I do think the poor creature loved me. If I could but see her, and learn all the facts from her own lips. Yet the note is better evidence. Who, except us two, ever learned this cypher? How else could she have known these particulars about poor Lina? But, this is terrible. I did not think anything could shake me so! Ralph, my son Ralph, I must speak with him——No, no! Let me think; it's better that Lina alone should know it."
The old man arose—tottered towards the bell, and rang it, nervelessly, as if the silver knob were a hand he loathed to touch.
Agnes answered the summons, but even her self-possession gave way as she saw the General's face, pale and almost convulsed, turned upon her.
"I have ordered the carriage—it will be at the door in a few moments, sir," she stammered forth.
"Send it back to the stables: I shall not go out. The morning has clouded over."
Agnes glanced at the sunshine pouring its silvery warmth through the library window, but she did not venture to speak.
"Go," said General Harrington, in a suppressed voice, "go find your pupil, and say that I wish to speak with her a moment."