The manuscript was in three Parts. As he laid down each, Gertrude put forth a quiet hand and drew it to herself. He was too much preoccupied to notice how minutely and with what intent and passionate anxiety she examined it.
He was arranging the manuscript in order. Gertrude was absorbed in Part Three. He had reached out for it when he remembered that the original draft of Part Two had contained a passage as to which he had endeavoured to exercise an ancient editorial right. He looked to see whether Tanqueray had removed it.
He had not. The passage stood, naked and immense, tremendous as some monument of primeval nature, alone in literature, simple, superb, immortal; irremovable by any prayer. Brodrick looked at it now with a clearer vision. He acknowledged its grandeur and bowed his head to the power that was Tanqueray. Had he not been first to recognize it? It was as if his suspicion of the man urged him to a larger justice towards the writer.
He turned to Gertrude. "There are no alterations to be made, thank heaven——"
"How about this?"
She slid the manuscript under his arm; her finger pointed to the margin. He saw nothing.
"What?" He spoke with some irritation.
"This."
She turned up the lamp so that the light fell full upon the page. He bent closer. On the margin, so blurred as to be almost indecipherable, he saw his wife's sign, a square of delicate script. To a careless reader it might have seemed to have been written with a light pencil and to have been meant to stand. Examined closely it revealed the firm strokes of a heavy lead obliterated with india-rubber. Gertrude's finger slid away and left him free to turn the pages. There were several of these marks in the same handwriting, each one deliberately erased. The manuscript had been in his wife's hand within the last three days; for three days certainly Tanqueray had been in Chagford, and for three weeks for all Brodrick knew.
There was no reason why he should not be there, no reason why they should not be together. Then why these pitiable attempts at concealment, at the covering of the tracks?