This second glimpse of them, added to the one already given me, fixed the whole indelibly in my mind. This is the way they looked.
[]; V; [];.}; V; [-]; {;
While I watched these cabalistic marks pass from red to black and finally vanish in a wild leap up the chimney, Mrs. Packard remarked:
“I wish I could destroy the memory of all my mistakes as completely as I can that old envelope.”
I did not answer; I was watching the weary droop of her hand over the arm of her chair.
“You are tired, Mrs. Packard,” was my sympathetic observation. “Will you not take a nap? I will gladly sit by you and read you to sleep.”
“No, no,” she cried, at once alert and active; “no sleep. Look at that pile of correspondence, half of it on charitable matters. Now that I feel better, now that I have relieved my mind, I must look over my letters and try to take up the old threads again.”
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Possibly. If you will go to my room up-stairs, I will join you after I have sorted and read my mail.”
I was glad to obey this order. I had a curiosity about her room. It had been the scene of much I did not understand the night before. Should I find any traces there of that search which had finally ended over my head in the attic?