He stooped deliberately and picked up the written sheet of paper, and stood by the table with the mysterious document in his hand. There was no thought in his mind of reading it; it was, he knew, written in Dutch; but he had a wish to satisfy himself in regard to the signature; and he opened the letter and turned to the second page and looked at the name which footed it—K. Holmann. There was no doubt about that; and yet he had seen Holman sign his name at least a dozen times, and on no occasion had he affixed the second N. Herman Nel was right: the man was a scoundrel, and engaged in devil’s work.
So absorbed was he, while he stood there by the table turning the letter in his hands, so deeply plunged in thought, piecing what he had recently learnt with the imperfectly remembered past which recurred in fitful and broken consecutiveness; episodes and fragments of speech, all relevant to the main issue and seldom joining on to one another, darting into his mind with the quick unexpectedness, the blinding bewilderment of a lantern flashed out of darkness into the eyes; so fiercely angry at having lent himself to this man’s nefarious schemes—schemes which while Herman Nel had talked he had inclined to doubt, considering them too wildly improbable for credence, and which now he doubted no longer; so intent was he upon the problem of how he should act in regard to this knowledge which had come to him unsought, that he did not hear the door open, nor see the figure standing in the opening, quietly observant of him. It was not until the draught caused by the open door fluttered the paper in his hand that he looked up; and immediately he became aware of Honor watching him from the threshold, a cold little smile on her face and a look of scorn in her deep eyes.
She came forward into the room, closing the door behind her. Matheson was so surprised by the strange manner of her entry, and by the scornful disapproval of her look, that he remained motionless and silent, staring at her, with the open letter crushed in his hand.
“It is my brother’s letter you have there, I believe?” she said.
He relinquished it to her.
“It was on the floor,” he explained.
“I understood you had no knowledge of Dutch,” she said. “You gave us to understand that... but you were reading the letter.”
Matheson flushed darkly.
“I have no knowledge of Dutch,” he answered. “I have not read the letter—if I were sufficiently curious, and also sufficiently dishonourable to wish to do so, I could not. I was interested in the German signature of a man I always believed to be English.”
She still, he saw, disbelieved him. He had never felt so passionately angry with any one in his life before.