CHAPTER XVI.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 156, 12 June 1886, Page 7

CHAPTER XVI.

, , THE GREES ENVELOPE ?^/? u *W l understand what ha*h beteirn, Which, as L think, you JK&uw not. Here la & < ' ldtter. - , > • X , , j , ' ' „ , w -rOyHXi&p, HEri departure was a relief to me. First because I had heard bo much, I wanted an opportunity of digeßting it ; and secondly, because of my interest in the engraving she had .shown me, and the impatience I felt to study it more closely. I took it up the' moment ehe closed the door. " It was the picture of a martyr, and ha* evidently been cut from a good-sixed book* It represented a man clothed in a long garment, standing with his back to the stake, and his hand held out of the flames, which were slowly consuming it. As' a work of art, , ie was ordinary ; as the illustration of some mighty fact, it was full of suggestion. I gazed at it for a long time, and then turned to the bookcase. Was the book from which it had been taken there I eagerly hoped so. For, ignorant as I may seem to you, I did not know tho picture or the incident it represented ; and I was anxious to know, both. For Mr Barrowe was not the man to disfigure a work of art by covering it with a coaree print like this unless he had a motive ; and how could even a suspicion of that motive be mine without a full knowledge of just what thia picture implied ? But though I looked from end to end of the various shelveb beiore me, I did not succeed in finding the \olume Irom which this engraving had been taken. Large books were therein plenty, but none.ot rhe exact Bis« 6 of the priut 1 held mmy naud. I own I was di-aptjomted, and turned away from the bookcase ut last with a feeling of having 1 been baffled on the verge of some very in, terestmg discovery. The theory advanced with so much assurance by Mrs Simp-on had not met with much credouce on tny part. I believed her facts, but not the conclusions she drew fiom them. Nothing yhe had related to me' convinced me that Mr Bamm's was in any wayinsane ; nor could I imagine for a moment thut he could be so wichuut the knowledge of Ada, if not of hid associates and friends. At th^e same time I was becoming more and moie assured iv my own mind that his death waa she result 01 his own act, and, had it not boeu tor the difficulty or imagining a reason for it, could have retired to rest thab nighb with a feeling of real security in the justness of a conclusion that so exonerated the mau I loved. As it was, that secret doubt itili remained like a> cloud over my hope^, a doubt which I had promisaU myself ehould be entirely removed beiore I allowed my partiality for Mr Pollard to take upm itself the character of partisanship. 1 therefore continued my explorations through the room. Mr Barrowe'd det-k presented to me the greatest attraction oi anything there ; one that waa entirely of the imagination, of course, t-ince nothing could 'have induced me to open it. notwithstanding every key stood in its lock, and on© oi ibe drawers wa3 pulled a little «\,y our,. Only the lawhad a ugbt to violate hw papeie ; and hard as it waa to deny mjsolt a search into what was po^ibly the tiuest exponent of his character, 1 resolutely did i>o, consoling rnyseii with the tnought that it any open explanation ot his be ret hctd been in these drawei.-, it would have beon pioduced at the inquest. As ior his books, I felt no &uch scruples. But then, what, could hit* books tell me? .Nothing, snivel that he wat u wideotudeutand loved tlio dclicaco and imaginative in litera~ ture. Brides, Iliad glanced at many ot the volume, in my eaat^h uu*r n.o one which, had ne.d tho engraving. Yeo 1 did pause a ruinutu and mu my eye along the bhelves, \aguely conscious, peihapt, that often in. the iiiu*t out ot-ine \v.iy comers lurko the strict object for wh/jii we aro no caiefully seeking. But 1 saw nothing to detain rm.-, and aver one bi iei glance at a spirited statuette that- adorned the top shelf, I hurried on to a small taule upon which lsa.w a photogiapbic album. I was not mistaken ; and it was with considerable iuteiest 1 took it up aud began to run over its pages in search tor that picture of Ada which I felt ought to be there. And which Has there ; but which I scarcely looked ar, twice, to much v aa my attention attracted by an envelope that tt-il out from between the leaves as I turned them eagerly over. That envelops, with ita simple direc* tion, " Miss Ada Reynolds, Monroe Street, S — ,"made an tr.i in my history. For I no sooner perceived io than I lelt confident of having seen ib or its like before : and pro-sotJtly, ■with almost the force of an electric shock, I recollected the letter which I had brought Ada the afternoon of the daj r she died, and which, as my startled conscience now told me, bad not only never been given her, but had not been so* >>.uch as seen by me since, though all her belongings had pa&sed into my hands, and the table where I bad flung it had been emptied of its contents moie than once. That letter and this empty envelope were, in etjltt, handwriting, and direction, facsimiles. It bad, therefore, come from, Mr Barrows ; a most significant fact, and one which I had no sooner realised than I was seized by the most intense excitem©nt Y and might, have done some wild and foolish thing, had not the latoneds of the hour restrained me, and kept my passionate hopes and fears ,_ within their proper bounds. As it \va?, found myself obliged te take several turns up and down the room, and oveu to open the window for a. breath of fre^h air, before I could face the subject* with any calir.r.es9, or ask myself what had become of this letter, with any hope oj? leceiving a rational reply. That, in the, startling and tragic events off that day it had been overlooked and forgotten, I did not wonder. But that it should, have escaped my notice afterwards, or if mine, that of the landlady who tooit charge of the room in my absence, was what I could net understand. As far i&3 I could reimember, I lelt the letter lying in plain yiew on the table. Why, then, hod not someone) seen and produced it? Could it be, that some one more interested than I knew, had. stolen it? Or was the landlady, pf , my former home alone to blame for its beiug; lost or.mislaid ? , . Had it > been daylight I should have at» once gone' down to 1 my farmer boardingsplace to inquire ; as it w,»s ten o'clock at night, I coulrl only, satisfy my impatience by going.oarefully over the incidents of thfttt

merabr*bWd*y, in' the hope of rousing some \ memory which would lead to an elucidation -of this new mystery. Fiwt, then, , I r distinctly recollected receiving the letter* from the postman. I had met him at the foot of the steps as I came home from my unsuccessful search for employment, and he had handed me the letter, simply eaying : "For Miss Reynolds," I scarcely looked at it, certainly gave it no thought, for we had been together a week, and I had as yet taken no interest in her concerns. So mechanical, indeed, had been my whole action of the matter, that I doubt if the, flight of Mr Barrows's writing alone, even. though it hfcd been, used in transcribing her name, would have served to recall the incident to my mind. But the shade of, the 4 en v9loßer-.it was of a peculiar greenish tint— gave that unconscious spur to the memory which was needed to bring back the, very look of the writing which had been on the letter I, had so carelessly handled ; and I found as others have found before me, there is no real forgetfulness in this world ; that the most superficial glance , may serve to imprint images upon the mind, which only await time and occasion to reappear before us with startling distinctness. My entrance into my own room, my finding it empty, and the consequent flinging of the letter down on the table, all came back to me with the utmost clearness ; even the fact that the letter fell face downwards and that I did not stop to turn it over. But beyond that all was blank to me up to the moment when I found myself confronting Ada standing with her hand on her heart in that sudden spasm of pain which had been the too sure precursor of her rapidly Approaching doom. But wait ! Where was I standing when 3| first became concious of her presence in the room? Why, in the' window, of course. I remembered now just how h6t the afternoon sun looked to me as I stared at the white walls of the cottage over the way. And she — where was she ?— between me and the table ? Yes ! She had therefore passed by the letter, and might have picked it up, might even have opened it, and read it before the spell of my reverie was broken, and I turned to find her standing there before my eyes. Her pallor, the evident distress under which she was labouring, even the sudden pain which had attacked her heart, might thus be accounted for, and what I bad always supposed to be a purely physical attack prove to be the result of a mental and moral shock. But, no. Had she opened and read the letter it would have been found there ; or if not there, at least upon her person after death. Besides, bsr whole conduct between the moment I laced her and that of the alarm in the street below precluded the idea that anything of importance to her and her love had occurred to break her faith in the future, and the man to whose care she was pledged. Could I not remember the happy smile which accompanied her offer of assistance and home to me ? And was there anything but hope and trust in the tone with which she had bad designated her lover as being the best and noblest man in town ? No ; if she read his communication, and afterwards disposed of it in some way I did not observe, then it was not of the nature I suspected ; but an ordinary letter, similar in character to others she had received, foretelling nothing, and only valuable in the elucidation of the mystery before me from the fact of its offering proof presumptive that he did not anticipate death, or at all events did set meditate it. An important enough fact to establish, certainly ; but it was not the fact in which I had come to believe, and so I found it difficult to give it a place in my mind, or even to entertain the possibility of Ada's baying seen the letter at all. I preferred rather to indulge in all soits of wild conjectures, having the landlady, the servant, even Dr. Farnham, at their base ; and it •was not till I was visited by some mad thought of Rhoda Colweil's possible connivance in the disappearance of this important bit of evidence that I realised the enormity of my selfish folly, and endeavoured to put an end to its further indulgence by preparing stoically for bed. But sleep, which would have been so welcome, did not come ; and after a long and weary night, I arose in anything but a Tefreehed state, to meet the exigencies of what might possibly prove to be a most important day. The first thing to be done was undoubtedly to visit my old home, and interview its landlady. If nothing came of that, to hunt tip the nurse, Mrs Gannon, whom, as you will remember, I had left in charge of my poor Ada's remains, when sudden duty in the shape of Doctor Farnham carried me away to the bedeide of Mrs Pollard ; and if this also came to naught, to burst the bonds of secrecy which I had maintained, and by taking this same Dr Farnham into my confidence obtain at least an adviser who would relieve me, if only partially, from the weight of Tesponsibillity, which I now felt to be pressing rather too heavily upon my strength. But though I carried out this programme as far as seeking for and procuring an interview with Mra Gannon at her place ot nursing, I did not succeed in obtaining the least clue to the fate of this mysteriously lost letter. Neither of the women mentioned bad seen it, nor was it really believed by them to have been on the table when they arranged the room after my Ada's peaceful death. Yet even to this they could not swear, nor would the landlady admit but that it might still have been lying there when they came to carry Ada away, though she would say that it could not have been ■anywhere in view the next day, for she had thoroughly cleaned and tidied up the room herself ; and as in doing this sbe had been obliged to Bhift every article off the table on to the bed and back again, she must not only have seen, but handled the letter twice"; and this she was morally certain she did not do. I was therefore in as great perplexity as ever, and was seriously meditating a visit to l*r. Farnham, when I bethought me of making one final experiment before resorting to this la«t and not altogether welcome alternative). This was to examine everything which had been on the table, in the hope.of discovering in some out-of-the-way receptacle the mifaing letter for which I had such need. To be sure it was an effort that promised little, there having been but few articles on the table capable of concealing ever such a small object as this I was in search of ; but when one is at their wits' end j they do not stop to discuss probabilities, or even to weigh in too nice a scale the prospect of success. Recalling, therefore, just what h-»d been tm the table, I went to the trunk in which these articles were packed, and laid them out one by one on the floor They were as •follows : A work-basket of Ada' 3; a box of writing-paper ; a copy of " Harper's Magazine V an atlas ; and two volumes of poetry, ' one belonging to Ada and one to me. 'A single glance into the work-basket was : sufficient, also into the box of stationery. 1 But- the atlas' was well shaken; and the ; . magazine carefully looked through, before "-"I decided it -was not in v them. ' As for the two books of poetry, I disdained them no I was about to toes them back ''Unopened, when there came upou me a disposition to be thorough, and I looked at "" thenTboth, only 'to iind snugly ensconced* * In my own little copy of Mrs Browning the long-sought and despaired-of letter, with its