n tell us what of these were now passing through the mind of
her who sat at that window, brooding sorrowfully?

"Here 's a letter for you, Loo, and a weighty one too," said Holmes,
entering the room, and approaching her before she was aware. "It was
charged half a dollar extra, for overweight. I trust you 'll say it was
worth the money."

"Fetch a light! get me a candle!" cried she, eagerly; and she broke
the seal with hands all trembling and twitching. "And leave me, papa;
leave me a moment to myself."

He placed the candles at her side, and stole away. She turned one glance
at the address, "To Mrs. Hawke," and she read in that one word that the
writer knew her story. But the contents soon banished other thoughts;
they were her own long-coveted, long-sought letters; there they were
now before her, time-worn and crumpled, records of a terrible season of
sorrow and misery and guilt! She counted them over and over; there were
twenty-seven; not one was missing. She did not dare to open them; and
even in her happiness to regain them was the darkening shadow of the
melancholy period when they were written,--the long days of suffering
and the nights of tears. So engrossed was she by the thought that they
were now her own again, that the long tyranny of years had ended and the
ever-impending shame departed, that she could not turn to learn how she
came by them, nor through whom. At length this seemed to flash suddenly
on her mind, and she examined the envelope, and found a small sealed
note, addressed, as was the packet, "Mrs. Hawke." O'Shea's initials were
in the corner. It contained but one line, which ran thus:--

"I have read the enclosed.--G. O'S."

Then was it that the bitterness of her lot smote her with all its force,
and she dropped down upon her knees, and, laying her head on the chair,
sobbed as if each convulsive beat would have rent her very heart.

Oh, the ineffable misery of an exposed shame! the terrible sense that
we are to meet abroad and before the world the stern condemnation our
conscience has already pronounced, and that henceforth we are to be
shunned and avoided! There is not left to us any longer one mood of mind
that can bring repose. If we are depressed, it is in the mourning of
our guilt we seem to be dressed; if for a moment we assume the air of
light-heartedness, it is to shock the world by the want of feeling for
our shame! It is written that we are to be outcasts and live apart!

"May I c