rded answer
that this odd servant returned.

I became as inquisitive as old Toller himself.

"Who is your master?" I went on.

The reply staggered me. Speaking as quietly and respectfully as ever, he
said: "I can't tell you, sir."

"Do you mean that you are forbidden to tell me?"

"No, sir."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean that I don't know my master's name."

I instantly took the letter from him, and looked at the address. For once
in a way, I had jumped at a conclusion and I had proved to be right. The
handwriting on the letter, and the handwriting of the confession which I
had read overnight, were one and the same.

"Are you to wait for an answer?" I asked, as I opened the envelope.

"I am to wait, sir, if you tell me to do so."

The letter was a long one. After running my eye over the first sentences,
I surprised myself by acting discreetly. "You needn't wait," I said; "I
will send a reply." The man of few words raised his shabby hat, turned
about in silence, and left me.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DEAF LODGER

The letter was superscribed: "Private and Confidential." It was written
in these words:

"Sir,--You will do me grievous wrong if you suppose that I am trying to
force myself on your acquaintance. My object in writing is to prevent you
(if I can) from misinterpreting my language and my conduct, on the only
two occasions when we happen to have met.

"I am conscious that you must have thought me rude and
ungrateful--perhaps even a little mad--when I returned your kindness last
night, in honoring me with a visit, by using language which has justified
you in treating me as a stranger.

"Fortunately for myself, I gave you my autobiography to read. After what
you now know of me, I may hope that your sense of justice will make some
allowance for a man, tried (I had almost written, cursed) by such
suffering as mine.

"There are other deaf persons, as I have heard, who set me a good
example.

"They feel the consolations of religion. Their sweet tempers find relief
even under the loss of the most precious of all the senses. They mix with
society; submitting to their dreadful isolation, and preserving
unimpaired sympathy with their happier fellow-creatures who can hear. I
am not one of those persons. With sorrow I say it--I never have
submitted, I never can submit, to my hard fate.

"Let me not omit to ask your indulgence for my behavior, when we met at
the cottage this morning.

"What unfa