'You think so?' said Thornton Carey. 'All the time the woman was speaking I was haunted by an idea that such might be the case, and when I read Mrs. Griswold's avowal of her strong impression I was almost convinced; but I have been walking about in the Central Park ever since, arguing the question out with myself, and I am fain to confess that I am now strongly sceptical about it.'
'For what reason?' asked Duval.
'The absence of motive,' said Thornton Carey. 'Suppose Trenton Warren had taken advantage of the confidence reposed in him by Griswold, had used his knowledge of and power over their joint business affairs heavily to pillage his friend, he had opportunities during Griswold's absence of twisting accounts and destroying evidence, and would never have gone to the extent of murder for the sake of concealing his dishonesty.'
'You are right,' said Bryan Duval. 'From all I have heard of Mr. Warren, he would know far too much for that; but even he is human, I suppose, and I think I can supply another motive by which most of us are liable to be actuated, and which in this instance, if I am right, has been all-powerful.'
'And what is that?' asked Carey.
'Combination of offended vanity and a desire for vengeance,' said Bryan. 'When you came in, I told you that during the day I had been engaged in reading Mrs. Griswold's journal, and that I had laid myself down on the sofa the better to reflect over certain passages which had struck me. This was the case just now, though you thought I was going to sleep. Up to the time of your arrival I had not discovered the meaning of those passages, but what you have said has given me the clue.'
'You think so?' asked Carey.
'I am sure of it,' said Bryan Duval. 'But you shall judge for yourself. I have read this diary through with the greatest attention, and have marked certain portions of it for reference. It seems that it was commenced at Alston Griswold's request; he intended that it should be a record of all the events of her daily life, and should be sent to him from time to time in lieu of ordinary letters. And that,' said Mr. Duval, looking up, 'shows what a strange fellow he was and what confidence he had in his wife. The idea of expecting any woman to tell you all that she has been doing, much more all that she has been thinking! Mrs. Griswold seems to have been a kind of pattern wife, for there is certainly no one else of my acquaintance whom I should have thought capable of strictly following such a behest.'
'Mrs. Griswold,' said Carey, 'would obey her husband to the letter.'
'Exactly,' said Duval. 'Now let us get back to the journal. You will observe in this first marked passage that her idea of writing a journal is that he may "follow her life from day to day, through all the familiar hours of it, so that he may cheat himself out of the idea of separation," and a little farther on she writes: "So I begin it thus, in an irregular and unskilful fashion, no doubt, but with the utmost sincerity of intention to write in it everything which can interest him." I have read these passages to you to show how simple and single-minded the woman was when she commenced her task; how fully she intended that every thought of her heart, every prompting impulse should be laid bare to the loved one far away. I will read you farther passages now, which will show you how the idea had to be given up; how certain experiences in her life were written indeed, but not for submission to her husband's eye; and how the entries for his perusal are mere domestic details about the baby, the nurse, and the doctor, omitting any reference to the one great event in her life which had happened since her husband's departure.'