As I was a pauper
I preferred to go with what I had out of the wreck--just enough to bring
me here. But I've earned my own living since."
"Penniless--just enough to bring you out here!" Her voice had a sound of
honest amazement. "How can you say such a thing! You had my letter--you
said you had my letter?"
"Yes, I had your letter," he answered. "Your thoughtful brother brought
it to me. You had told him all the dear womanly things you had said or
were going to say to your husband, and he passed them on to me with the
letter."
"Never mind what he said to you, Shiel. It was what I said that
mattered." She was getting bolder every minute. The comedy was playing
into her hands.
"You wrote in your letter the things he said to me," he replied.
Her protest sounded indignantly real. "I said nothing in the letter I
wrote you that any man would not wish to hear. Is it so unpleasant for a
man who thinks he is penniless to be told that he has made the year's
income of a cabinet minister?"
"I don't understand," he returned helplessly.
"You talk as though you had never read my letter.
"I never have read your letter," he replied in bewilderment.
Her face had the flush of honest anger. "You do not dare to tell me you
destroyed my letter without reading it--that you destroyed all that
letter contained simply because you no longer cared for your wife;
because you wanted to be rid of her, wanted to vanish and never see her
any more, and so go and leave no trace of yourself! You have the
courage here to my face"--the comedy of the situation gained much from
the mock indignation--she no longer had any compunctions--"to say that
you destroyed my letter and what it contained--a small fortune it would
be out here.
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