in the book."

"Why, how was that?" asked Ezra, without turning towards him.

"Her own note had been taken away before I got the book." Reuben felt
himself on dangerous ground. It was unpleasant to have to talk of these
things, and it looked impossible to reveal Rachel's eccentricity to
Ezra, knowing what he knew.

"Ah!" said Ezra, absent-mindedly. "You read the letter then!" He went on
pacing up and down. "You understood it?"

"I--seemed to understand it," said Reuben. Ezra came back to his chair
and seated himself with a look of half resolve.

"Reuben," he began, in a voice pathetically ill-disguised, "it was
something of a cruelty as that letter should ha' been found at all after
such a lapse o' time. The rights of the case was these: As a younger man
than now--I was six-an'-thirty at the time--I wrote to--I wrote an offer
of myself in marriage to a person as was then resident i' this parish.
The day but one after I wrote I had to go up to London to see to some
affairs as was in the lawyer's hands relating to thy grandfather's
property. He'd been dead a year or more, and the thing was only just got
straight. While theer, I heard Paganini, and I've told you, more than
once, I never cared to touch a bow theerafter. I found Manzini on the
music-stand and closed the pages. He was open theer as I had left him,
for I was a bit particular about my things, and mother used to pretend
as her dursn't lay a hand upon 'em. I waited and waited for th'
answer. I met the person as I had wrote to once, and bowed to her. I've
remembered often and often the start her gave, as if I'd done her some
sort of insult. I could never understand how or why. I did not know as I
had gi'en her any right to treat me thus contemptuous. I thought her set
a value upon herself beyond my deservin's, and I abode to bear it. In
the course of a two-three weeks she left the parish, and I made up my
mind as her'd left despising me. I won't pretend as I might not ha'
found her letter if her had been less prideful and disdainous, for
in the course of a little while I might ha' gone back to the music if
things had gone happier with me. But it would ha' been kinder not to
know the truth at all than find it out so late."

He had spoken throughout in what was meant for his customary tone of dry
gravity, but it failed him often, though for a word only. At such times
he would pause and cough behind his wasted hand, and these frequent
breaks in the narrative m