“I do say so.”
“Then what's the meaning of this letter?” cried he, as, carried away by a burst of passion, he overstepped all the prudential reserve he had sworn to himself to regard. “What does this mean?”
“I know nothing of that letter, nor what it contains,” said she, blushing till her very brow became crimson.
“I don't suppose you do, for though it is addressed to you, the seal is unbroken; but you know whose handwriting it's in, and you know that you have had others from the same quarter.”
“I believe the writing is Mr. Trafford's,” said she, as a deathlike paleness spread over her face, “because he himself once asked me to read a letter from him in the same handwriting.”
“Which you did?”
“No; I refused. I handed the letter back to him unopened, and said that, as I certainly should not write to him without my father's knowledge and permission, I would not read a letter from him without the same.”
“And what was the epistle, then, that the vicar's housekeeper handed him from you?”
“That same letter I have spoken of. He left it on my table, insisting and believing that on second thoughts I would read it. He thought so because it was not to me, though addressed to me, but the copy of a letter he had written to his mother, about me certainly.” Here she blushed deeply again. “As I continued, however, of the same mind, determined not to see what the letter contained, I re-enclosed it and gave it to Mrs. Brennan to hand to him.”
“And all this you kept a secret from me?”