a couple of dusty envelopes, in a third a piece of sealing-wax,
half-a-dozen nibs, and a broken pencil. The fourth, and last drawer,
was very stiff. For a long time it defied my efforts, and it was only
by a great exertion of strength that I was at last able to wrench it
open. To my surprise I saw two packets of letters, tied together with
faded ribbon. I took them up, and then remembered, with a start, what
they were. They were all in their envelopes, and all were addressed,
in the same hand-writing, to Sir CHARLES CALLENDER, Bart., Curzon
Street, Mayfair. They were his wife's letters, and, after the
death of Sir CHARLES, whose sole executor I was, they came into my
possession,--Sir CHARLES, for some inscrutable reason, never having
destroyed them, although, after his wife's death, the reading of
them cannot have given him much pleasure. No doubt I ought to have
destroyed them. I had never read them; but there, in that forgotten
drawer, they had lain, the silent dust accumulating upon them as the
years rolled on. They reminded me of the story I am about to relate--a
story of which, I think, no one except myself has guessed the truth,
and which, in most of its details, I only knew from a paper, carefully
closed, heavily sealed, and addressed to me, which I found amongst my
friend's documents. It was in his hand-writing throughout, but I shall
tell it in my own words, and in my own way.

Nobody who was about in London Society some thirty years ago, could
fail to know or know about the beautiful Lady CALLENDER. She was of a
good county family. She was clever and accomplished. She had married
a man rich, generous, amiable, and cultivated, who adored her.
Unfortunately they had no children, but, in every other respect, Lady
CALLENDER seemed to be very justly an object of envy and admiration
to most of the men and women of her circle. Personally I had no great
liking for her. I don't take any credit for that--far from it. The
reason may have been that her Ladyship (although I was one of her
husband's best friends, had been his school chum, and had "kept"
with him in the same set of rooms at Cambridge, where his triumphs,
physical and intellectual, are still remembered) never much cared for
me. She could dissemble her real feelings better than any woman I
ever knew, she always greeted me with a smile, she even made a parade
of taking my advice on little family difficulties, but there was an
indefinable something in her mann