"No more? It doesn't end in the middle of a sentence?"
"Probably not. But some one has been kind enough to tear off the bottom of this sheet just at the very line I have arrived at."
"Oh, how annoying! Isn't it continued at the top of the next column?"
"Fortunately—no."
"Fortunately?"
"Yes; I'm tired of it; it's the essence of dulness. I marvel that the writer is still at large."
"Who can have torn it," she said, taking no notice of my gibe. "Not uncle, I'm sure. Oh, I know now. It was Angelo himself that did it. Don't you remember? This morning, when he lit his cigar."
The memory of this last event invested the newspaper article with an interest which it did not before possess in my eyes. I recalled the artist's uneasy manner when asking whether my uncle or myself had read the critique on his picture, his evident satisfaction when he found we had not, the triumphant air with which he had lit his cigar with a piece of newspaper; and this conduct disposed me to think that he had designedly torn off the bottom of the column containing the end of the article.
The more I dwelt on the matter the more my opinion became strengthened. I was as anxious now as Daphne to read the critique to the end.
"How curious that Angelo should tear the very paper referring to himself!" remarked Daphne.