"PREACHER'S WIFE: As long as you stay in Milton there is danger of two funerals. Dynamite kills women as well as men."
Philip sat by the study lounge holding these scrawls in his hand as his wife recovered from her fainting fit after he had applied restoratives. His heart was filled with horror at the thought of the complete cowardice which could threaten the life of an innocent woman. There was with it all a feeling of intense contempt of such childish, dime-novel methods of intimidation as that of sticking a knife into the study desk. If it had not been for its effect on his wife, Philip would have laughed at the whole thing. As it was, he was surprised and alarmed that she had fainted—a thing he had never known her to do; and as soon as she was able to speak he listened anxiously to her story.
"It must have been an hour after you had gone, Philip, that I thought I heard a noise upstairs, and thinking perhaps you had left one of your windows down at the top and the curtain was flapping, I went right up, and the minute I stepped into the room I had the feeling that some one was there."
"Didn't you carry up a light?"
"No. The lamp was burning at the end of the upper hall, and so I never thought of needing more. Well, as I moved over toward the window, still feeling that strange, unaccountable knowledge of some one there, a man stepped out from behind your desk, walked right up to me and held out those letters in one hand, while with the other he threw the light from a small bull's-eye or burglar's lantern upon them."
Philip listened in amazement.
"Sarah, you must have dreamed all that! It isn't likely that any man would do such a thing!"
"Philip, I did not dream. I was terribly wide-awake, and so scared that I couldn't even scream. My tongue seemed to be entirely useless. But I felt compelled to read what was written, and the man held the papers there until the words seemed to burn my eyes. He then walked over to the desk, and with one blow drove the knife down into the wood, and then I fainted away, and that is all I can remember."
"And what became of the man?" asked Philip, still inclined to think that his wife had in some way fallen asleep and dreamed at least a part of this strange scene, perhaps before she went up to the study and discovered the letters.
"I don't know; maybe he is in the house yet. Philip, I am almost dead for fear—not for myself, but for your life."