"But, my dear," said I gravely, drawing forth the packet from my breast, "I, too, have my story to tell. I cannot call it a confession, either; rather it is the story of somebody else—Hallo! who's broken the seal?" For on shipboard I had beguiled the time by writing a sort of journal to accompany Fanny's letter, and had placed all together in a thick white envelope, addressing it, in legal parlance, "To whom it may concern."
"I did," said Bessie faintly, burying her face on my arm. "It fell out of your pocket when they carried you up stairs; and I read it, every word, twice over, before you came to yourself."
"You little witch! And I thought you were marrying me out of pure faith in me, and not of sight or knowledge."
"It was faith, the highest faith," said Bessie proudly, and looking into my eyes with her old saucy dash, "to know, to feel sure, that that sealed paper concerned nobody but me."
And so she has ever since maintained.
Transcriber's note:
This is a compiled version of a novel published in sections in the LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE OF POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
Links to the e-books from which this text was compiled: