"I've kept it," she repeated, nodding her head. "I know many would say I was wrong. But was I? That's the question. In any case that is another matter between myself and my Maker."
"Please read this, sir?" She held out the paper to him, He took it and after a moment's hesitation read it. It had neither date nor address. It ran as follows:
DEAREST--I am sending this by a safe hand to tell you that I cannot possibly get down to-night. I am so sorry and most dreadfully disappointed, but I will explain everything when we meet to-morrow. This is to prevent your waiting on when I'm not coming.
There was no signature.
"You had no right to keep this," he said to her angrily. As he spoke he looked at the piece of paper and felt again how strange and foreign to him the whole nature of woman was. The risks that they would take! The foolish mad things that they would do to satisfy some caprice or whim!
"How do you know that this was written by Mrs. Brandon?" he asked.
"Of course I know her handwriting very well," Miss Milton answered. "She often wrote to me when I was at the Library."
He was silent. He was seeing those two in the new light of this letter. So they were really lovers, the drab, unromantic, plain, dull, middle-aged souls! What had they seen in one another? What had they felt, to drive them to deeds so desperate, yes, and so absurd? Was there then a world right outside his ken, a world from which he had been since his birth excluded? Absent-mindedly he had put the letter down on his table. Quickly she stretched out her gloved hand and took it. The bag clicked over it.
"Why have you brought this to me?" he asked, looking at her with a disgust that he did not attempt to conceal. "You are the first person to whom I have spoken about the matter," she answered. "I have not said anything even to Mrs. Baker. I have had the letter for several days and have not known what is right to do about it."
"There is only one thing that is right to do about it," he answered sharply. "Burn it."