mity
of what these dreadful words intimated. He seemed to be mentally and
physically paralyzed, as he sat there staring blankly at the letter.

But this stupefaction suddenly changed to indignant rage.

"What a fool I am!" he cried, "to listen to such base lies, such
malicious charges against the purest woman whom God ever sent to bless a
man!"

And he angrily crumpled up the letter, and threw it into the empty
fireplace, saying:

"I will forget having read it. I will not soil my mind by letting it
dwell upon such turpitude!"

He said this, and he thought it; but, for all that, he could not open
the rest of his letters. The anonymous missive stood before his eyes in
letters of fire, and drove every other thought from his mind.

That penetrating, clinging, all-corroding worm, suspicion, had taken
possession of his soul; and as he leaned over his desk, with his
face buried in his hands, thinking over many things which had lately
occurred, insignificant at the time, but fearfully ominous now, this
unwillingly admitted germ of suspicion grew and expanded until it became
certainty.

But, resolved that he would not think of his wife in connection with so
vile a deed, he imagined a thousand wild excuses for the mischief-maker
who took this mode of annoying him; of course there was no truth in his
assertions, but from curiosity he would like to know who had written it.
And yet suppose----

"Merciful God! can it be true?" he wildly cried, as the idea of his
wife's guilt would obstinately return to his troubled mind.

Thinking that the writing might throw some light on the mystery, he
started up and tremblingly picked the fatal letter out of the ashes.
Carefully smoothing it out, he laid it on his desk, and studied the
heavy strokes, light strokes, and capitals of every word.

"It must be from some of my clerks," he finally said, "someone who is
angry with me for refusing to raise his salary; or perhaps it is the one
that I dismissed the other day."

Clinging to this idea, he thought over all the young men in his
bank; but not one could he believe capable of resorting to so base a
vengeance.

Then he wondered where the letter had been posted, thinking this might
throw some light upon the mystery. He looked at the envelope, and read
the post-mark:

"Rue du Cardinal Lemoine."

This fact told him nothing.

Once more he read the letter, spelling over each word, and trying to put
a different construction on the ho