MY letter from Mr. Playmore, inclosing the agent's extraordinarytelegram, was not inspired by the sanguine view of our prospectswhich he had expressed to me when we met at Benjamin's house.

"If the telegram mean anything," he wrote, "it means that thefragments of the torn letter have been cast into the housemaid'sbucket (along with the dust, the ashes, and the rest of thelitter in the room), and have been emptied on the dust-heap atGleninch. Since this was done, the accumulated refuse collectedfrom the periodical cleansings of the house, during a term ofnearly three years--including, of course, the ashes from thefires kept burning, for the greater part of the year, in thelibrary and the picture-gallery--have been poured upon the heap,and have buried the precious morsels of paper deeper and deeper,day by day. Even if we have a fair chance of finding thesefragments, what hope can we feel, at this distance of time, ofrecovering them with the writing in a state of preservation? Ishall be glad to hear, by return of post if possible, how thematter strikes you. If you could make it convenient to consultwith me personally in Edinburgh, we should save time, when timemay be of serious importance to us. While you are at DoctorStarkweather's you are within easy reach of this place. Pleasethink of it."

I thought of it seriously enough. The foremost question which Ihad to consider was the question of my husband.

The departure of the mother and son from Spain had been so longdelayed, by the surgeon's orders, that the travelers had onlyadvanced on their homeward journey as far as Bordeaux, when I hadlast heard from Mrs. Macallan three or four days since. Allowingfor an interval of repose at Bordeaux, and for the slow rate atwhich they would be compelled to move afterward, I might stillexpect them to arrive in England some time before a letter fromthe agent in America could reach Mr. Playmore. How, in thisposition of affairs, I could contrive to join the lawyer inEdinburgh, after meeting my husband in London, it was not easy tosee. The wise and the right way, as I thought, was to tell Mr.Playmore frankly that I was not mistress of myOwn movements, and that he had better address his next letter tome at Benjamin's house.

Writing to my legal adviser in this sense, I had a word of my ownto add on the subject of the torn letter.

In the last years of my father's life I had traveled with him inItaly, and I had seen in the Museum at Naples the wonderfulrelics of a bygone time discovered among the ruins of Pompeii. Byway of encouraging Mr. Playmore, I now reminded him that theeruption which had overwhelmed the town had preserved, for morethan sixteen hundred years, such perishable things as the strawin which pottery had been packed; the paintings on house walls;the dresses worn by the inhabitants; and (most noticeable of all,in our case) a piece of ancient paper, still attached to thevolcanic ashes which had fallen over it. If these discoveries hadbeen made after a lapse of sixteen centuries, under a layer ofdust and ashes on a large scale, surely we might hope to meetwith similar cases of preservation, after a lapse of three orfour years only, under a layer of dust and ashes on a smallscale. Taking for granted (what was perhaps doubtful enough) thatthe fragments of the letter could be recovered, my own convictionwas that the writing on them, though it might be faded, wouldcertainly still be legible. The very accumulations which Mr.Playmore deplored would be the means of preserving them from therain and the damp. With these modest hints I closed my letter;and thus for once, thanks to my Continental experience, I wasable to instruct my lawyer!

Another day passed; and I heard nothing of the travelers.

I began to feel anxious. I made my preparations for my journeysouthward overnight; and I resolved to start for London the nextday--unless I heard of some change in Mrs. Macallan's travelingarrangements in the interval.

The post of the next morning decided my course of action. Itbrought me a letter from my mother-in-law, which added one moreto the memorable dates in my domestic calendar.

Eustace and his mother had advanced as far as Paris on theirhomeward journey, when a cruel disaster had befallen them. Thefatigues of traveling, and the excitement of his anticipatedmeeting with me, had proved together to be too much for myhusband. He had held out as far as Paris with the greatestdifficulty; and he was now confined to his bed again, struck downby a relapse. The doctors, this time, had no fear for his life,provided that his patience would support him through a lengthenedperiod of the most absolute repose.

"It now rests with you, Valeria," Mrs. Macallan wrote, "tofortify and comfort Eustace under this new calamity. Do notsuppose that he has ever blamed or thought of blaming you forleaving him with me in Spain, as soon as he was declared to beout of danger. 'It was _I_ who left _her,_' he said to me, whenwe first talked about it; 'and it is my wife's right to expectthat I should go back to her.' Those were his words, my dear; andhe has done all he can to abide by them. Helpless in his bed, henow asks you to take the will for the deed, and to join him inParis. I think I know you well enough, my child, to be sure thatyou will do this; and I need only add one word of caution, beforeI close my letter. Avoid all reference, not only to the Trial(you will do that of your own accord), but even to our house atGleninch. You will understand how he feels, in his present stateof nervous depression, when I tell you that I should never haveventured on asking you to join him here, if your letter had notinformed me that your visits to Dexter were at an end. Would youbelieve it?--his horror of anything which recalls our pasttroubles is still so vivid that he has actually asked me to givemy consent to selling Gleninch!"

So Eustace's mother wrote of him. But she had not trustedentirely to her own powers of persuasion. A slip of paper wasinclosed in her letter, containing these two lines, traced inpencil--oh, so feebly and so wearily!--by my poor darlinghimself:

"I am too weak to travel any further, Valeria. Will you come tome and forgive me?" A few pencil-marks followed; but they wereillegible. The writing of those two short sentences had exhaustedhim.

It is not saying much for myself, I know--but, having confessedit when I was wrong, let me, at least, record it when I did whatwas right--I decided instantly on giving up all furtherconnection with the recovery of the torn letter. If Eustace askedme the question, I was resolved to be able to answer truly: "Ihave made the sacrifice that assures your tranquillity. Whenresignation was hardest, I have humbled my obstinate spirit, andI have given way for my husband's sake."

There was half an hour to spare before I left the vicarage forthe railway station. In that interval I wrote again to Mr.Playmore, telling him plainly what my position was, andwithdrawing, at once and forever, from all share in investigatingthe mystery which lay hidden under the dust-heap at Gleninch.