far otherwise. As it was, however, Zillah herself had found them
and given them to him. Zillah had been exciting him by her agitation
and her suffering, and had, last of all, been rousing him gradually
up to a pitch of the most intense excitement, by the conversation
which she had brought forward, by her timidity, her reluctance, her
strange questionings, and her general agitation. To a task which
required the utmost coolness of feeling, and calm impartiality of
judgment, he brought a feverish heart, a heated brain, and an
unreasoning fear of some terrific disclosure. All this prepared him
to accept blindly whatever the paper might reveal.

As he examined the paper he did not look at Zillah, but spelled out
the words from the characters, one by one, and saw that the
translation was correct. This took a long time; and all the while
Zillah sat there, with her eyes fastened on him; but he did not give
her one look. All his soul seemed to be absorbed by the papers before
him. At last he ended with the cipher writing--or, at least, with as
much of it as was supposed to be decipherable--and then he turned to
the other papers. These he read through; and then, beginning again,
he read them through once more. One only exclamation escaped him. It
was while reading that last letter, where mention was made of the
name Redfield Lyttoun being an assumed one. Then he said, in a low
voice which seemed like a groan wrung out by anguish from his inmost
soul:

"Oh, my God! my God!"

At last the Earl finished examining the papers. He put them down
feebly, and sat staring blankly at vacancy. He looked ten years older
than when he had entered the dining-room. His face was as bloodless
as the face of a corpse, his lips were ashen, and new furrows seemed
to have been traced on his brow. On his face there was stamped a
fixed and settled expression of dull, changeless anguish, which smote
Zillah to her heart. He did not see her--he did not notice that other
face, as pallid as his own, which was turned toward his, with an
agony in its expression which rivaled all that he was enduring.
No--he noticed nothing, and saw no one. All his soul was taken up now
with one thought. He had read the paper, and had at once accepted its
terrific meaning. To him it had declared that in the tragedy of his
young life, not only his wife had been false, but his friend also.
More--that it was his friend who had betrayed his wife. More yet--and
there was fresh an