To all this Jack listened with intense eagerness, and occasional bursts
Of uncontrollable laughter.
I concluded my narrative with my departure from the house. Of my return, my wanderings with Marion, my sight of him at Berton's, and all those other circumstances, I did not say a word. Those things were not the sort that I chose to reveal to anybody, much less to Jack.
Suddenly, and in the midst of his laughter and nonsense, Jack's face changed. He grew serious. He thrust his hand in his pocket with something like consternation, and then drew forth—
CHAPTER XXX.
A LETTER!—STRANGE HESITATION.—GLOOMY FOREBODINGS.—JACK DOWN DEEP IN THE DUMPS.—FRESH CONFESSIONS.—WHY HE MISSED THE TRYST.—REMORSE AND REVENGE.—JACK'S VOWS OF VENGEANCE.—A VERY SINGULAR AND UNACCOUNTABLE CHARACTER.—JACK'S GLOOMY MENACES.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I'll be hanged if I haven't forgot all about it. It's been in my pocket ever since yesterday morning."
Saying this, he held up the letter, and looked at it for some time Without opening it, and with a strange mixture of embarrassment and ruefulness in his expression.
"What's that?" said I, carelessly. "A letter? Who's it from, Jack?"
Jack did not give any immediate answer. He turned the letter over and over, looking at it on the front and on the back.
"You seem hit hard, old man," said I, "about something. Is it a secret?"