I don't know what Peters did then, but I know that my knees give from under me and I flopped down in the armchair.
"You? You, Mary!" says I.
Peters seemed to be as much flabbergasted as I was. He rubbed his forehead.
"You lost it?" he says, slow.
"Yes," says she. "That is, I—I destroyed it by accident. It was while you two were at dinner. I was clearin' up the sortin' table and—and puttin' the waste paper in the stove. I—I must have taken the letter with the other things."
"Nonsense!" I sung out. Peters didn't say nothin'.
"Nonsense!" I said again. "You don't know that 'twas—"
"But I do," she interrupted. "I—I saw it burnin' and—and it was too late to get it out. It was my fault altogether. No one else is to blame at all."
If I hadn't been settin' down already you could have knocked me over with a feather. 'Twas an accident, of course; anybody might have done such a thing; but what I couldn't understand was why she hadn't told me of it afore. That didn't seem like her at all.
"Well!" I says; "well!"