made
me suffer much: it did not die till it was full time: following an
agony so lingering, death ought to be welcome."

Welcome I endeavoured to make it. Indeed, long pain had made patience a
habit. In the end I closed the eyes of my dead, covered its face, and
composed its limbs with great calm.

The letters, however, must be put away, out of sight: people who have
undergone bereavement always jealously gather together and lock away
mementos: it is not supportable to be stabbed to the heart each moment
by sharp revival of regret.

One vacant holiday afternoon (the Thursday) going to my treasure, with
intent to consider its final disposal, I perceived--and this time with
a strong impulse of displeasure--that it had been again tampered with:
the packet was there, indeed, but the ribbon which secured it had been
untied and retied; and by other symptoms I knew that my drawer had been
visited.

This was a little too much. Madame Beck herself was the soul of
discretion, besides having as strong a brain and sound a judgment as
ever furnished a human head; that she should know the contents of my
casket, was not pleasant, but might be borne. Little Jesuit
inquisitress as she was, she could see things in a true light, and
understand them in an unperverted sense; but the idea that she had
ventured to communicate information, thus gained, to others; that she
had, perhaps, amused herself with a companion over documents, in my
eyes most sacred, shocked me cruelly. Yet, that such was the case I now
saw reason to fear; I even guessed her confidant. Her kinsman, M. Paul
Emanuel, had spent yesterday evening with her: she was much in the
habit of consulting him, and of discussing with him matters she
broached to no one else. This very morning, in class, that gentleman
had favoured me with a glance which he seemed to have borrowed from
Vashti, the actress; I had not at the moment comprehended that blue,
yet lurid, flash out of his angry eye; but I read its meaning now.
_He_, I believed, was not apt to regard what concerned me from a fair
point of view, nor to judge me with tolerance and candour: I had always
found him severe and suspicious: the thought that these letters, mere
friendly letters as they were, had fallen once, and might fall again,
into his hands, jarred my very soul.

What should I do to prevent this? In what corner of this strange house
was it possible to find security or secresy? Where could a key be a
safeguard,