The next day Meadows called upon Griffin. “Let me look at that letter?” said he. “I want to copy a part of it.”
“There has been one here before you,” said Griffin.
“Who?”
“She did not give her name, but I think it must have been Miss Merton. She begged me hard to let her see the letter. I told her she might take it home with her. Poor thing! she gave me a look as if she could have eaten me.”
“What else?” asked Meadows anxiously—his success had run ahead of his plot.
“She put it in her bosom.”
“In her bosom?”
“Ay! and pressed her little white hands upon it as if she had got a treasure. I doubt it will be more like the asp in the Bible story, eh! sir?”
“There! I don't want your reflections,” said Meadows, fiercely, but his voice quavered. The myrmidon was silenced.
Susan made her escape into a field called the Kynecroft, belonging to the citizens, and there she read the letter. It was a long, tiresome one, all about matters of business which she did not understand; it was only at the last page that she caught sight of the name she longed to see. She hurried down to it, and when she got to it with beating heart it was the fate of this innocent, loving woman to read these words: