Mr. Piper had seen his wife write her letters at this desk. The lid was closely shut, locked. This exasperated him, though it was hardly a circumstance to be wondered at that a lady should lock her desk. In Mr. Piper’s present temper it seemed an evidence of guilt. He tried to wrench open the lid by means of its delicate brass handles, and failing in this, he took out a strong knife which he used for lopping an occasional withered branch in his park or gardens, and prised the lock. Within all things were neatly arranged. Packets of dainty note-paper and envelopes, gold and ivory penholders, mother-o’-pearl blotting-book, pigeon-holes filled with letters. Mr. Piper emptied the pigeon-holes, and ran his eye rapidly over their contents. The letters were all undeniably feminine. No, there was nothing here from Captain Standish. But then these old cabinets generally contain hidden receptacles for guilty secrets, sly nests, in which to hatch state, or domestic, treason. Mr. Piper seized the sandalwood beading that framed the pigeon-holes, with both his hands, and drew them out bodily, in one piece, like a drawer. Behind them appeared a row of neat little recesses, each with its inlaid door. ‘This is where she would keep anything she wanted to hide,’ thought Mr. Piper. He was not mistaken. In one of the recesses he found some money lying loose. A bank note and half a dozen sovereigns. In another there was a morocco jewel-case, containing an opal cross set with diamonds, a trinket which Mr. Piper had never seen till that moment. A third recess was crammed with letters, this time unmistakably masculine. Bella’s husband sat down before the desk, and read these letters one by one, carefully. His commercial instincts came to his aid and kept him wondrously cool. He arranged the letters according to their dates, and after reading one, folded and endorsed it neatly before he laid it aside, as if it had been a business document. Had he been a lawyer preparing a case for the divorce court he could hardly have been more deliberate. The first ten or twelve letters were innocent enough. Courteous little notes about archery--French novels--a volume generally accompanying the letter that recommended it. Then the tone grew gradually more familiar--the notes became letters; then came sentiment--as morbidly sweet as the correspondence of Julie and her St. Preux, but happily without Julie’s tendency to sermonizing. Then they grew still warmer--the old, old story, abuse of the stern laws that set up the accident of wedlock as a barrier against the divinity of passion. There was a great deal Mr. Piper could not understand, but the gist of all was very clear to him. He saw that to the bottom of her heart his wife had been false, and that if she had hesitated on the brink of criminal treason, it was because she loved Little Yafford Park and the wealth that went along with it, not because she had one spark of gratitude or affection for him, Ebenezer Piper.