When they were alone
again they began to piece many unrelated things together and get horrible
results out of the combination. When things had got about to the worst
Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp and his wife asked:
"Oh, what is it?--what is it?"
"The note--Burgess's note! Its language was sarcastic, I see it now." He
quoted: "'At bottom you cannot respect me, _knowing_, as you do, of _that
matter of_ which I am accused'--oh, it is perfectly plain, now, God help
me! He knows that I know! You see the ingenuity of the phrasing. It
was a trap--and like a fool, I walked into it. And Mary--!"
"Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say--he didn't return
your transcript of the pretended test-remark."
"No--kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some
already. I know it--I know it well. I saw it in a dozen faces after
church. Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of recognition--he knew what he
had been doing!"
In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the morning
that the old couple were rather seriously ill--prostrated by the
exhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the
congratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said.
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