It had lettering in the corner. He spread it out
slightly with his fingers, as though abstractedly thinking of what he was
about to say. The initial in the corner was K. Kitty had left it on the
table while she was talking to Mrs. Crozier a halfhour before. Whatever
Burlingame actually thought or believed, he could not now resist picking
up the handkerchief and looking at it with a mocking smile. It was too
good a chance to waste. He still hugged to his evil heart the
humiliating remembrance of his expulsion from this house, the share
Crozier had had in it, and the things which Crozier had said to him then.
He had his enemy now between the upper and the nether mill-stones, and he
meant to grind him to the flour of utter abasement. It was clear that
the arrival of Mrs. Crozier had brought him no relief, for Crozier's face
was not that of a man who had found and opened a casket of good fortune.
"Rather dangerous that, in the bedroom of a family man," he said,
picking up the handkerchief and looking suggestively from the lettering
in the corner to Crozier. He laid it down again, smiling detestably.
Crozier calmly picked up the handkerchief, saw the lettering, then went
quietly to the door of the room and called Mrs.
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