which, if not all you could desire, still has that gleam of light upon
it which redeems it from being what it was before I knew you. I will,
therefore, ask not a word from you, but a look. If, when I pass your
house to-morrow afternoon at six o'clock, I see you standing in the
window, I shall know you grant me the encouragement of your sympathy, a
sympathy which will help me to endure the worst of all my thoughts,
that indirectly, if not directly, Guy and myself may be guilty of Mr.
Barrows' death; that our action may have given him an impetus to
destroy himself, or at least have shown him the way to end his life in
a seemingly secret manner; though why a man so respected and manifestly
happy as he should wish to close his career so suddenly, is as great a
mystery to me as it can possibly be to you.
One other word and I am done. If, in the mercy of your gentle and
upright nature, you accord me this favor, do not fear that I shall take
advantage of it, even in my thoughts. Nor need you think that by so
doing you may hamper yourself in the performance of a future duty;
since it would be as impossible for me to ask, as for you to grant, the
least suppression of the truth on your part; your candor being the
charm of all others which has most attracted my admiration and secured
my regard.
DWIGHT POLLARD.
Of the emotions produced in me by these, two letters I will say
nothing; I will only mention some of my thoughts. The first naturally
was, that owing to my illness I had not received the latter letter till
a week after it was written; consequently Dwight Pollard had failed to
obtain the slight token of encouragement which he had requested. This
was a source of deep regret to me, all the more that I did not know how
to rectify the evil without running the risk of rousing suspicion in
the breast of Rhoda Colwell. For, unreasonable as it may seem, her
words had roused in me a dread similar to that which one might feel of
a scorpion in the dark. I did not know how near she might be to me, or
when she might strike. The least stir, the least turn of my head
towards the forbidden object, might reveal her to be close at my side.
I neither dared trust the silence nor the fact that all seemed well
with me at present. A woman who could disguise herself as she could,
and whom no difficulty deterred from gaining her purpose, was not one
to brave with impunity, however clear might seem the outlook. I felt as
if my very thoughts were in danger from her intuition, and scarcely
dared breathe my intentions to the walls, lest the treacherous breeze
should carry them to her ears and awaken that formidable antagonism
which in her case was barbed with a power which might easily make the
most daring quail. And yet she must be braved; for not to save his life
could I let such an appeal as he had made me go unanswered; no, though
I knew the possibility remained of its being simply the offspring of a
keen and calculating mind driven to its last resource. It was enough