Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/389

Rh letter meant, was the sense of Bessy’s inferences and conjectures. She could feel them actually piercing the page in her hand like some hypersensitive visual organ to which matter offers no obstruction. Or rather, baffled in their endeavour, they were evoking out of the unseen, heaven knew what fantastic structure of intrigue—scrawling over the innocent page with burning evidences of perﬁdy and collusion.…

One thing became instantly clear to her: she must show the letter to Bessy. She ran her eyes over it again, trying to disentangle the consequences. There was the allusion to their talk in town—well, she had told Bessy of that! But the careless reference to their woodland excursions—what might not Bessy, in her present mood, make of it? Justine’s uppermost thought was of distress at the failure of her plan. Perhaps she might still have induced Amherst to come back, had it not been for this accident; but now that hope was destroyed

She raised her eyes and met Bessy’s. “Will you read it?” she said, holding out the letter.

Bessy received it with lifted brows, and a protesting murmur—but as she read, Justine saw the blood mount under her clear skin, invade the temples, the nape, even the little ﬂower-like ears; then it receded as suddenly, ebbing at last from the very lips, so that the smile with which she looked up from her reading was as [ 373 ]