“When did you find them?”
“We'd been living here a few days. I was up in the garret. There was a box.”
Henry remained motionless for a few moments. Then he sighed heavily, rose, and took Sylvia by the hand. “Come,” he said.
“What are you going to do?”
“Come.”
Sylvia followed, dragging back a little at her husband's leading hand, like a child. They passed through the dining-room into the kitchen. “There's a fire in the stove, ain't there?” said Henry, as they went.
Sylvia nodded again. She did not seem to have many words for this exigency.
Out in the kitchen Henry moved a lid from the stove, and put the little sheaf of newspaper clippings, which seemed somehow to have a sinister aspect of its own, on the bed of live coals. They leaped into a snarl of vicious flame. Henry and Sylvia stood hand in hand, watching, until nothing but a feathery heap of ashes remained on top of the coals. Then he replaced the lid and looked at Sylvia.
“Have you got any reason to believe that any living person besides you and I knows anything about this?” he asked.
Sylvia shook her head.