“Ye’re a guid man, Sandy Graham,” Miss Horn resumed, “gien God ever took the pains to mak ane. Dinna think onything atween you an’ her wad hae brocht me at this time o’ nicht to disturb ye in yer ain chaumer. Na, na! Whatever was atween you twa had an honest man intill ’t, an’ I wad hae taen my time to gie ye back yer dockiments. But there’s some o’ anither mark here.”
As she spoke, she drew from the parcel a small cardboard box, broken at the sides, and tied with a bit of tape. This she undid and, turning the box upside down, tumbled its contents out on the table before him.
“What mak ye o’ sic like as thae?” she said.
“Do you want me to——?” asked the schoolmaster with trembling voice.
“I jist div,” she answered.
They were a number of little notes—some of them but a word or two, and signed with initials; others longer, and signed in full. Mr Graham took up one of them reluctantly, and unfolded it softly.
He had hardly looked at it when he started and exclaimed,—
“God have mercy! What can be the date of this!”
There was no date to it. He held it in his hand for a minute, his eyes fixed on the fire, and his features almost convulsed with his efforts at composure; then laid it gently on the table, and said but without turning his eyes to Miss Horn,—
“I cannot read this. You must not ask me. It refers doubtless to the time when Miss Campbell was governess to Lady Annabel. I see no end to be answered by my reading one of these letters.”