Bible.

His face darkened, and he went out quickly into the garden; but stopped
before he reached the paling, and, turning back to the front window of
the parlor, looked in. He saw her sitting with her back to him, with
elbows on the table, and hands working feverishly in her tangled grey
hair. Her voice was still audible; but the words it pronounced could no
longer be distinguished. He waited at the window for a few moments; then
left it suddenly, saying to himself: "I wonder the book don't strike her
dead!" Those were his only words of farewell. With that thought in his
heart, he turned his back on the cottage, and on Joanna Grice.

He went on through the rain, taking the box with him, and looking about
for some sheltered place in which he could open it. After walking nearly
a mile, he saw an old cattle-shed, a little way off the road--a rotten,
deserted place; but it afforded some little shelter, even yet: so he
entered it.

There was one dry corner left; dry enough, at least, to suit
his purpose. In that he knelt down, and cut the cord round the
box--hesitated before he opened it--and began by tearing away the letter
outside, from the nail that fastened it to the cover.

It was a long letter, written in a close, crabbed hand. He ran his eye
over it impatiently, till his attention was accidentally caught and
arrested by two or three lines, more clearly penned than the rest, near
the middle of a page. For many years he had been unused to reading any
written characters; but he spelt out resolutely the words in the few
lines which first struck his eye, and found that they ran thus:--

"I have now only to add, before proceeding to the miserable confession
of our family dishonor, that I never afterwards saw, and only once heard
of, the man who tempted my niece to commit the deadly sin, which was her
ruin in this world, and will be her ruin in the next."

Beyond those words, he made no effort to read further. Thrusting the
letter hastily into his pocket, he turned once more to the box.

It was sealed up with strips of tape, but not locked. He forced the lid
open, and saw inside a few simple articles of woman's wearing apparel;
a little work-box; a lace collar, with the needle and thread still
sticking in it; several letters, here tied up in a packet, there
scattered carelessly; a gaily-bound album; a quantity of dried ferns and
flower leaves that had apparently fallen from between the pages: a
piece of canvas w