an icy chill crept over her as if it were a dead hand clutching hers and holding it fast. “I can’t destroy it; I dare not!” she whispered; “and what if somebody should find it? What if _he_ should? He told me once that he had been guilty of every sin but murder, and under strong provocation he might be led to do even that;” and a shudder of fear ran through her frame as she cast about in her own mind for a safe hiding-place for the letter which affected her so strangely. Suddenly it came to her that she could loosen a few tacks in the carpet, just where the lace curtains covered the floor in a corner of the bay window, and pushing the letter out of sight, drive the tacks in again, and so the secret would be safe, for a time at least. To do her justice, for once in her life conscience was prompting her to the only right course left her to pursue,—give the letter to Everard and abide the consequences. But she could not make up her mind to do this, knowing that utter poverty and disgrace would be the result, and she had learned by this time that poverty with Dr. Matthewson would be a far different thing from poverty with Everard. To hide the letter under the carpet was the work of a moment, and, unlocking the door, she was going for a hammer, with which to drive the tacks, when she heard her husband’s voice in the hall below, and knew that he was coming. He must not know that she held his guilty secret, lest he should murder her, as in her nervousness she felt that he might do, and so she retraced her steps to the couch, where she lay half fainting, and as white as marble, when the doctor entered the room and asked her what was the matter. She did not know, she said; she had been down to the village and walked rather fast, and was very warm, and had drank freely of ice-water, which made her feel as if her head were bursting. She should probably feel better soon. But she did not get better, and she lay all that day and the next upon the couch, and seemed so strange and nervous that her husband called in Dr. Rider, who, after a few questions, the drift of which she understood, and to which she gave false replies for the purpose of misleading him, assigned a cause for her ailments, and then went away. Thus deceived, and on the whole rather pleased than otherwise, Dr. Matthewson was disposed to be very attentive and indulgent to his wife, with whom he sat a good portion of each day, humoring all her whims and trying to quiet her restless, nervous state of mind. “You act as if you were afraid of me, Josey,” he said once, when he sat down beside her and put his arm around her with something of the old lover-like fondness. “You tremble like a leaf if I touch you, and shrink away from me. What is it? What has come between us? You may as well tell, for I am sure to find it out if there is anything.”