“Monday, December 1st.—The last month of the worn-out old year 1851! If I allowed myself to look back, what a miserable year I should see added to all the other miserable years that are gone! But I have made my resolution to look forward only, and I mean to keep it.
“I have nothing to record of the last two days, except that on the twenty-ninth I remembered Bashwood, and wrote to tell him of my new address. This morning the lawyers heard again from Mr. Darch. He acknowledges the receipt of the Declaration, but postpones stating the decision at which he has arrived until he has communicated with the trustees under the late Mr. Blanchard’s will, and has received his final instructions from his client, Miss Blanchard. The doctor’s lawyers declare that this last letter is a mere device for gaining time—with what object they are, of course, not in a position to guess. The doctor himself says, facetiously, it is the usual lawyer’s object of making a long bill. My own idea is that Mr. Darch has his suspicions of something wrong, and that his purpose in trying to gain time—”
“Ten, at night.—I had written as far as that last unfinished sentence (toward four in the afternoon) when I was startled by hearing a cab drive up to the door. I went to the window, and got there just in time to see old Bashwood getting out with an activity of which I should never have supposed him capable. So little did I anticipate the tremendous discovery that was going to burst on me in another minute, that I turned to the glass, and wondered what the susceptible old gentleman would say to me in my widow’s cap.
“The instant he entered the room, I saw that some serious disaster had happened. His eyes were wild, his wig was awry. He approached me with a strange mixture of eagerness and dismay. ‘I’ve done as you told me,’ he whispered, breathlessly. ‘I’ve held my tongue about it, and come straight to you!’ He caught me by the hand before I could speak, with a boldness quite new in my experience of him. ‘Oh how can I break it to you!’ he burst out. ‘I’m beside myself when I think of it!’
“‘When you can speak,’ I said, putting him into a chair, ‘speak out. I see in your face that you bring me news I don’t look for from Thorpe Ambrose.’
“He put his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out a letter. He looked at the letter, and looked at me. ‘New—new—news you don’t look for,’ he stammered; ‘but not from Thorpe Ambrose!’
“‘Not from Thorpe Ambrose!’
“‘No. From the sea!’
“The first dawning of the truth broke on me at those words. I couldn’t speak—I could only hold out my hand to him for the letter.