“Perhaps you may be willing, then, to give me some advice. The truth is, I am in a very curious predicament; one from which I don’t know how to escape, and yet which demands immediate action. I should like to tell you about it; may I?”
“You may; I shall be only too happy to give you any advice in my power.”
She drew in her breath with a sort of vague relief, though her forehead did not lose its frown.
“It can all be said in a few words. I have in my possession a package of papers which were intrusted to me by two ladies, with the understanding that I should neither return nor destroy them without the full cognizance and expressed desire of both parties, given in person or writing. That they were to remain in my hands till then, and that nothing or nobody should extort them from me.”
“That is easily understood,” said I; for she stopped.
“But, now comes word from one of the ladies, the one, too, most interested in the matter, that, for certain reasons, the immediate destruction of those papers is necessary to her peace and safety.”
“And do you want to know what your duty is in this case?”
“Yes,” she tremulously replied.
I rose. I could not help it: a flood of conjectures rushing in tumult over me.
“It is to hold on to the papers like grim death till released from your guardianship by the combined wish of both parties.”