the table before him.

"What in the world are you about?" I asked.

Benjamin blushed--I was going to say, like a young girl; but young girls
have given up blushing in these latter days of the age we live in.

"Oh, nothing, nothing!" he said, confusedly. "Don't notice it."

He stretched out his hand to brush the morsels of paper off the table.
Those morsels raised a sudden suspicion in my mind. I stopped him.

"You have heard from Mr. Playmore!" I said. "Tell me the truth,
Benjamin. Yes or no?"

Benjamin blushed a shade deeper, and answered, "Yes."

"Where is the letter?"

"I mustn't show it to you, Valeria."

This (need I say it?) made me determined to see the letter. My best way
of persuading Benjamin to show it to me was to tell him of the sacrifice
that I had made to my husband's wishes. "I have no further voice in
the matter," I added, when I had done. "It now rests entirely with Mr.
Playmore to go on or to give up; and this is my last opportunity of
discovering what he really thinks about it. Don't I deserve some little
indulgence? Have I no claim to look at the letter?"

Benjamin was too much surprised, and too much pleased with me, when he
heard what had happened, to be able to resist my entreaties. He gave me
the letter.

Mr. Playmore wrote to appeal confidentially to Benjamin as a commercial
man. In the long course of his occupation in business, it was just
possible that he might have heard of cases in which documents have been
put together again after having been torn up by design or by accident.
Even if his experience failed in this particular, he might be able to
refer to some authority in London who would be capable of giving an
opinion on the subject. By way of explaining his strange request, Mr.
Playmore reverted to the notes which Benjamin had taken at Miserrimus
Dexter's house, and informed him of the serious importance of "the
gibberish" which he had reported under protest. The letter closed by
recommending that any correspondence which ensued should be kept a
secret from me--on the ground that it might excite false hopes in my
mind if I were informed of it.

I now understood the tone which my worthy adviser had adopted in writing
to me. His interest in the recovery of the letter was evidently so
overpowering that common prudence compelled him to conceal it from me,
in case of ultimate failure. This did not look as if Mr. Playmore was
likely to give up the investigation on my withdrawal f