Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/390

380 expression, and made no reply for a moment; then he said, taking hold of the door:— "I must go now, I don't want to talk any more. I will be back soon."

"You shall not go," said Susan, more slowly, and in a voice of anguish. "I will follow you; you shall not leave me! Oh, Tom, Tom, tell me what I have done!" Suddenly, by what preternatural intuition I know not,—possibly, because, in her great excitement, she was lifted into a state of clairvoyant perception—she stopped like one hearing a distant sound, leaned forward, and said in an altered tone, "Was it because I would not let you read my letter to Bell?"

As the words passed her lips, she saw his face change,—the first break which there had been in its fearful rigidity. She knew she had touched the truth at last.

"Tom, Tom!" she cried, "was that it? Was that it? I see it was. Why, how could you have minded that so much?" and she led him, half by main force, to a chair, and threw her arms around his neck.

"Ought I not to have minded it?" he asked, in a stern tone.

Susan was reflecting. How distinctly before her eyes at that moment, stood out the fatal sentence, "Be careful what you write."

"Tom," she said, "I will write this very night to Bell, and ask her to send back the letter, that you may read every word of it."