Baptisto smiled—darkly, malignantly.
“Oh yes, senor, of course!”
I could have struck him.
Damn him! does he think I am already ornamented, like Falstaff, with an ugly pair of horns? I shall have to get rid of him, after all. He saw the expression on my face, and was gone in a moment; but he had left his poison to work.
All the devil was awake within me. I could not work, I could not read, I could not rest in any place. When the lunch-bell sounded, I went in, and drank a couple of glasses of wine, but ate nothing. Then for some hours I flitted about like a ghost, from room to room, from the house to the laboratory, upstairs and down. I went into her boudoir. The rosy curtains were drawn, and the air was still sweet with perfumes, with the very breath of her body. I am afraid I was mean enough to play the spy—to open drawers, to look into her work-basket; nay, I even went so far as to inspect her wardrobe, and examine the pocket of the dress she had worn that morning.
I wanted that letter.
If I could have found it, and read in it any confirmation of my suspicions, I would have taken instant action. But I could not find it.
In the drawer of the work-table, however, I found something.
A sheet of paper, carefully folded up. I opened it, and found it covered with writing in a man’s hand. At the top was written—“I think these are the verses you wanted? I have transcribed them for you.—C. S.” The verses followed—some twaddle about the meeting in heaven of those who have lived on earth; with incredible images of cherubs sitting on clouds (blowing their own trumpets, I suppose, with angelic self-satisfaction); descriptions of impossible habitations, with roofs of gold and silver, and inspired rhymes of “love” and “dove,” “eyes” and “paradise.” The paper was the pinkest of pinks, and delicately perfumed; the writing beautiful, with ethereal curves and upsweeps, exquisite punctuation, and a liberal supply of points of exclamation. I put the rubbish back in its place. It had obviously been lying there for some time, and was not at all the sort of document of which I was in search. So I quitted the boudoir, not much wiser than when I entered it, and resumed my uneasy ramblings about the house.
About four in the afternoon, I heard wheels coming up the avenue. I looked out, and was just in time to see the pony-carriage pass. What was my amazement, however, when I beheld, calmly driving the carriage, with my wife seated at his side, the clergyman himself.