“Can you bear another surprise? Mr. Morris has seen Miss Jethro, and has discovered that Mr. Mirabel has been wrongly suspected of a dreadful crime. Our amiable little clergyman is guilty of being a coward—and guilty of nothing else. Are you really quiet enough to read about it?”
She produced some leaves of paper filled with writing. “There,” she explained, “is Mr. Morris’s own account of all that passed between Miss Jethro and himself.”
“But how do you come by it?”
“Mr. Morris gave it to me. He said, ‘Show it to Emily as soon as possible; and take care to be with her while she reads it.’ There is a reason for this—” Cecilia’s voice faltered. On the brink of some explanation, she seemed to recoil from it. “I will tell you by-and-by what the reason is,” she said.
Emily looked nervously at the manuscript. “Why doesn’t he tell me himself what he has discovered? Is he—” The leaves began to flutter in her trembling fingers—“is he angry with me?”
“Oh, Emily, angry with You! Read what he has written and you shall know why he keeps away.”
Emily opened the manuscript.
CHAPTER LXVI. ALBAN’S NARRATIVE.
“The information which I have obtained from Miss Jethro has been communicated to me, on the condition that I shall not disclose the place of her residence. ‘Let me pass out of notice (she said) as completely as if I had passed out of life; I wish to be forgotten by some, and to be unknown by others.’” With this one stipulation, she left me free to write the present narrative of what passed at the interview between us. I feel that the discoveries which I have made are too important to the persons interested to be trusted to memory.