'Then I will make my meaning plainer. Every letter which you write to your husband must be sent to my office, under cover to me, to be forwarded from thence. Such are Griswold's explicit directions. Please to look at this memorandum.' He laid a leaf, torn from a note-book, before her; it bore these words: '_All letters written to me by my wile, or sent to my private address to be forwarded, are to be sent under cover to Trenton Warren to his office, when he will dispatch them to me_.' 'ALSTON GRISWOLD.' 'I see,' said Helen, 'that your statement is correct, that Mr. Griswold has made this extraordinary arrangement, and that, much as I dislike it I am bound to conform to it. But you, Mr. Warren, _you_ are bound to explain it. Have the goodness to do so.' 'Ah, ha!' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, full of impertinent depreciation to her angered eyes; 'that, I regret to say, it is not in my power to do!' 'What, do you pretend that after your last words with my husband, after undertaking the charge he laid upon you, after bringing me this letter and this memorandum, you do not know why Mr. Griswold made such an arrangement?' 'Pardon me, I do not pretend, I do not say, anything of the sort. I am perfectly well aware of the motive which led to Mr. Griswold's making the arrangement which is unpleasant to you, but which I am constrained to commend as a wise and proper one. I merely say that I regret that it is not in my power to inform you of his reasons.' 'You refuse to tell me; you acknowledge that you are in my husband's confidence more completely than I am--you tell me so in fact, commending his unexplained directions to me--and you expect me to tolerate all this. For what do you take me, Mr. Warren?'