He was my daughter's lover. He was my own ideal of a
gifted, kind-hearted, if somewhat mysterious, young man. No
calumny uttered against him can awaken in you half the sorrow and
indignation it does in me. Let me see those lines or what there is
left of them so that I may share your feelings. They must be
dreadful--"
"They are more than dreadful. I don't know how I had strength to
pull these pieces off. I couldn't have done it if they had been
quite dry. But what do you want to see them for? I'd have left
them there if I had been willing to have them seen. They are for
the kitchen fire. Wait a moment and then we will talk."
But Deborah had no mind to let these pieces escape her eye. Sick
as she felt at heart, she exerted herself to win the little
woman's confidence; and when Deborah exerted herself, even under
such adverse conditions as these, she seldom failed to succeed.
Nor did she fail now. At the end of fifteen minutes she had the
torn bits of paper arranged in their proper position and was
reading these words:
The scene of Olivder's crime.
Nothing could be more explicit nothing more damaging. As the
glances of the two women met, it would be difficult to tell on
which face Distress hung out the whiter flag.
"The beginning of the end!" was Deborah's thought. "If after Mr.
Black's efforts, a charge like this is found posted up in the
public ways, the ruin of the Ostranders is determined upon, and
nothing we can do can stop it.
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