“Do I look like a wasp?” she asked half tearfully. She was in a strange mood.
“You look like a golden busy bee,” he answered. “But tell me, how did you come to know enough about her to call her a cat?”
“Because, as you say, I was a busy golden bee,” she retorted.
“That information doesn’t get me much further,” he answered.
“I opened that letter,” she replied.
“‘That letter’—you mean you opened the letter he showed us which he had left sealed as it came to him five years ago?” The Young Doctor’s face wore a look of dismay.
“I steamed the envelope open—how else could I have done it! I steamed it open, saw what I wanted, and closed it up again.”
The Young Doctor’s face was pale now. This was a terrible revelation. He had a man’s view of such conduct. He almost shrank from her, though she stood there as inviting and innocent a specimen of girlhood as the eye could wish to see. She did not look dishonourable.
“Do you realise what that means?” he asked in a cold, hard tone.
“Oh, come, don’t put on that look and don’t talk like John the Evangelist,” she retorted. “I did it, not out of curiosity, and not to do any one harm, but to do her good—his wife.”