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410 may look at the knife that has stabbed his nearest and dearest to the heart. The writing on the envelope is mine, that on the sheet inside is not; but the forgery is so excellent that, were this letter a copy of one I had ever written, I should pronounce it to be my own. I give it back to him without a word.

"The sight of your handwriting," he goes on, "had so routed the jealous demons that had for the past ten days tormented me, that the letter itself came upon me like a rude, violent shock. Then I grew angry, and thought how unlike you it was to play me such a trick, and (knowing my weakness about Tempest) how unworthy of you! The joke seemed to me to be in the worst possible taste. I pushed your letter and the flowers aside, and mechanically opened the paper—not that I expected to find there the announcement you bade me look for, but because I thought some curious similarity of names to yours and Tempest's had suggested the sorry jest. And I found no less than the actual announcement of your marriage. I was still staring at it, incapable of any reasonable thought, when Mills knocked at the door, and asked for orders about something or other. As he was going out of the room, I asked him if he had heard any Silverbridge news since he came away. He hesitated for a moment, then took from his pocket a letter, which he laid on the table, then went away without a word. Like all the other servants, he knew pretty well how matters lay between you and me. The letter was addressed to him, and the enclosure was from a housemaid (apparently) living in your house. She said that you were married to young Mr. Tempest, to everybody's surprise; that people said it was like a stolen marriage, even though Mrs. Adair went to church to see you made man and wife, and Mr. Skipworth read the service. Nell, I had treated your letter as a bad joke, I had doubted the newspaper, for I know mistakes sometimes occur, but this third piece of evidence I could not, and did not doubt;