“Ah!” she gasped in breathless haste. “I wonder what this contains?” And she eagerly broke the seals, and drew forth a sheet of foolscap closely written, to which some other papers were attached by means of a brass fastener.
From the envelope, too, something fell, and I picked it up, finding to my surprise that it was a snap-shot photograph much worn and tattered, but preserved by being mounted upon a piece of linen. It was a half-faded view of a country crossroads in a flat and rather dismal country, with a small lonely house, probably once an old toll-house, with high chimneys standing on the edge of the highway, a small strip of flower-garden railed off at the side. Before the door was a rustic porch covered by climbing roses, and out on the roadside an old Windsor armchair that had apparently just been vacated.
While I was examining the view beneath the lamplight, the dead man’s daughter was reading swiftly through those close lines her father had penned.
Suddenly she uttered a loud cry as though horrified by some discovery, and, startled, I turned to glance at her. Her countenance had changed; she was blanched to the lips.
“No!” she gasped hoarsely. “I—I can’t believe it—I won’t!”
Again she glanced at the paper to re-read those fateful lines.
“What is it?” I inquired anxiously. “May I not know?” And I crossed to where she stood.
“No,” she answered firmly, placing the paper behind her. “No! Not even you may know this!” And with a sudden movement she tore the paper to pieces in her hands, and ere I could rescue it, she had cast the fragments into the fire.
The flames leapt up, and next instant the dead man’s confession—if such it were—was consumed and lost for ever, while his daughter stood, haggard, rigid and white as death.