Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/383

Rh Tom a secret capacity for jealousy? Ah! if he could only know how immeasurably higher she held him than she had ever held any other man; how absolutely his strong integrity and loyalty of nature had won her trust and her love!

Later in the day Sue sat down to answer Bell's letter. When the letter was half finished, she was called away. She left the letter lying open on her desk.

When Tom came home at night and did not find Sue, he had a vague sense of discomfort, as he always did when she was not in the house. Roaming about the library, idly, he sat down at Sue's desk, saw the open letter, turned the sheet over to find out to whom it was written, saw Bell's name, and proceeded to read what Sue had written. Bell's letters to Sue and Sue's to her were always common property; there was nothing in the least strange in Tom's reading that letter; but this, alas! was what he read. After some comments on Mrs. Balloure's death and references to what Bell had said in regard to the professor's character, Sue had gone on to repeat what Tom had that morning said:— "What do you suppose, Bell," she wrote, "ever put such an idea into his head? Bless him! Dear old fellow! How much happier, safer a woman I am, in every way, with him than I ever could have been with any other man; Now, Bell, do be careful what you write about Professor Balloure, for I never have a secret thing in the world from Tom,