“He got a letter this morning. I don’t know what was in it.”
“We had better search for it.”
The body was taken down and laid on the bed. Dr. Park searched the pockets, and found a half sheet of note paper, on which these lines were written:
“Maria:—I have made up my mind I can ive no longer. I have made a terrible discovery. When I married you, I thought my first wife, who deserted me four years ago, dead. I learn by a letter received this morning that she is still living in a town of Illinois. The only thing I can do is to free you both from my presence. When you come back from the store you will find me cold and dead. The little that I leave behind I give to you. If my first wife should come here, as she threatens, you can tell her so. Good-by.
“William.”
The reading of this letter made a sensation. Mrs. Brown went into hysterics, and there was a scene of confusion.
“Do you think I can go?” Carl asked Dr. Park.
“Yes. There is nothing to connect you with the sad event.”
Carl gladly left the cottage, and it was only when he was a mile on his way that he remembered that he had not paid for his dinner, after all.