t the very first one that
I opened was the identical one from which Cullingworth was quoting in
which my mother had described him in those rather forcible terms.

Well, this made me sit down and gasp. I am, I think, one of the most
unsuspicious men upon earth, and through a certain easy-going indolence
of disposition I never even think of the possibility of those with whom
I am brought in contact trying to deceive me. It does not occur to me.
But let me once get on that line of thought--let me have proof that
there is reason for suspicion--and then all faith slips completely away
from me. Now I could see an explanation for much which had puzzled me at
Bradfield. Those sudden fits of ill temper, the occasional ill-concealed
animosity of Cullingworth--did they not mark the arrival of each of
my mother's letters? I was convinced that they did. He had read them
then--read them from the pockets of the little house coat which I used
to leave carelessly in the hall when I put on my professional one to go
out. I could remember, for example, how at the end of his illness his
manner had suddenly changed on the very day when that final letter of my
mother's had arrived. Yes, it was certain that he had read them from the
beginning.

But a blacker depth of treachery lay beyond. If he had read them, and if
he had been insane enough to think that I was acting disloyally towards
him, why had he not said so at the time? Why had he contented himself
with sidelong scowls and quarrelling over trivialities--breaking, too,
into forced smiles when I had asked him point blank what was the matter?
One obvious reason was that he could not tell his grievance without
telling also how he had acquired his information. But I knew enough of
Cullingworth's resource to feel that he could easily have got over such
a difficulty as that. In fact, in this last letter he HAD got over it
by his tale about the grate and the maid. He must have had some stronger
reason for restraint. As I thought over the course of our relations I
was convinced that his scheme was to lure me on by promises until I had
committed myself, and then to abandon me, so that I should myself have
no resource but to compound with my creditors-to be, in fact, that which
my mother had called him.

But in that case he must have been planning it out almost from the
beginning of my stay with him, for my mother's letters stigmatising his
conduct had begun very early. For some time he had been