Its secret
was for my own breast. Judge what my remorse has been; judge the
power of my own secret self-condemnation, by what you see here."
And, entering, he reached up, and pulled aside the carpet he had
strung up over one end of the room, disclosing amid a number of
loosened boards, the barred cell of a condemned convict.
"This was my bed, gentlemen, till a stranger coming into my home,
made such an acknowledgment of my sin impossible!"
XXXIV
DARK HOLLOW
Later, when the boards he had loosened in anticipation of this
hour were all removed, they came upon a packet of closely written
words hidden in the framework of the bed.
It read as follows:
Whosoever lays hands on this MS. will already be acquainted with
my crime. If he would also know its cause and the full story of my
hypocrisy, let him read these lines written, as it were, with my
heart's blood.
I loved Algernon Etheridge; I shall never have a dearer friend.
His odd ways, his lank, possibly ungainly figure crowned by a head
of scholarly refinement, his amiability when pleased, his
irascibility when crossed, formed a character attractive to me
from its very contradictions; and after my wife's death and before
my son Oliver reached a companionable age, it was in my
intercourse with this man I found my most solid satisfaction.
Yet we often quarrelled. His dogmatism frequently ran counter to
my views, and, being myself a man of quick and violent temper,
hard words sometimes passed between us, to be forgotten the next
minute in a hand-shake, or some other token of mutual esteem.
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