The incident increased Edith’s fears; the letter was filled with expressions of love, and Donald, unsuspecting, trusting her always, had not even asked to see it. She went into the kitchen on the plea of making a cup of tea, and burned the letter at the gas range, fearful every moment that he would come in and see what she was doing. There were many other similar letters, locked in a drawer of her bureau. She determined to destroy these as well, in the morning.
Later on, Donald slept, supposing that she was doing likewise, but she only made pretense, designed to hide her feelings. She sobbed softly to herself throughout the long hours till daybreak, but morning found her dry-eyed, ready to face whatever disaster the day might bring.
Mr. Brennan was standing behind his broad mahogany table-desk, his eyeglasses in one hand, the other grasping a package. Edith, in her agitation, did not observe the latter. She sank into a big leather-covered chair and looked at the lawyer expectantly.
He pushed some papers across the desk to her and requested her to sign them. She did so, without reading them, or knowing what they were. These formalities completed, he drew the package, which appeared to contain a large number of letters, toward him and began to tap it in gently emphatic fashion with his eyeglasses.
“There is a certain matter, Mrs. Rogers, about which I must speak to you,” he began, after a long contemplation of the letters.
“Yes?” she answered, with a rising inflection. Something in his manner warned her that what he was about to say would concern her very deeply.
“When Mr. West died, his papers and other effects were forwarded to me, as executor of the estate. Among them I find these letters.” He indicated the package on the desk before him.
“Yes!” she repeated, her heart sinking. A cold perspiration broke out all over her. She wiped her lips with the ineffective bit of lace which she held crushed in her hand.
Brennan reached over, took up the bundle of letters, and handed it to her. He knew from the handwriting, from the initials with which they were signed, from all the attendant circumstances, that she had written them. “As executor of the estate, Mrs. Rogers,” he said slowly, “I feel that the best use I can make of these letters is to turn them over to you.”
For a moment she hardly grasped his meaning. His grave manner of speaking had made her believe that some terrible fate overhung her—some mysterious requirement of the law which she did not realize, or understand. Now, since it appeared that the only disposition of the letters that Brennan intended to make was to hand them over to her, she could scarcely believe that she had understood him aright. “You—you mean that I am to—to take them?” she said haltingly.