ster, with the hand that was
free.

Geoffrey observed her from the dining-room, on her way down the stairs.
He waited to see what she did, before he showed himself, and spoke
to her. Instead of going on into the kitchen, she stopped short, and
entered the parlor. Another suspicious circumstance! What did she want
in the parlor, without a candle, at that time of night?

She went to the book-case--her dark figure plainly visible in the
moonlight that flooded the little room. She staggered and put her
hand to her head; giddy, to all appearance, from extreme fatigue. She
recovered herself, and took a book from the shelf. She leaned against
the wall after she had possessed herself of the book. Too weary, as it
seemed, to get up stairs again without a little rest. Her arm-chair was
near her. Better rest, for a moment or two, to be had in that than could
be got by leaning against the wall. She sat down heavily in the chair,
with the book on her lap. One of her arms hung over the arm of the
chair, with the hand closed, apparently holding something.

Her head nodded on her breast--recovered itself--and sank gently on the
cushion at the back of the chair. Asleep? Fast asleep.

In less than a minute the muscles of the closed hand that hung over
the arm of the chair slowly relaxed. Something white slipped out of her
hand, and lay in the moonlight on the floor.

Geoffrey took off his heavy shoes, and entered the room noiselessly in
his stockings. He picked up the white thing on the floor. It proved to
be a collection of several sheets of thin paper, neatly folded together,
and closely covered with writing.

Writing? As long as she was awake she had kept it hidden in her hand.
Why hide it?

Had he let out any thing to compromise himself when he was light-headed
with the fever the night before? and had she taken it down in writing to
produce against him? Possessed by guilty distrust, even that monstrous
doubt assumed a look of probability to Geoffrey's mind. He left
the parlor as noiselessly as he had entered it, and made for the
candle-light in the drawing-room, determined to examine the manuscript
in his hand.

After carefully smoothing out the folded leaves on the table, he turned
to the first page, and read these lines.

CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH.

THE MANUSCRIPT.

1.

"MY Confession: To be put into my coffin; and to be buried with me when
I die.

"This is the history of what I did in the time of my married life