of it in the candle-flame. It ignited, and
the blue blaze began to spread over the envelope. Suddenly he blew it
out and tore the letter open. The margin of the paper was charred, but
the contents were intact. It ran:

"JOHN WESTERFELT,--I heard you Come Nigh meeting yore Death. The Lord
let you live to make you Suffer. The worst pain is not in the body But
in the Soul. You will likely live a long time and never git over yore
guilty suffering. The Report has gone out that some gal over thar tuk
care of you while you wus down in Bed. Well, it would be jest like you
to try yore skill on her. God Help her. I dont know her, nor nothin
about her, but she ort ter be warned. Ef she loved you with all Her
soul you would pick a Flaw somehow. Mark my words. You will live to
See Awful Shapes when nobody else does. Yore Hell Has begun. It will
Go on for everlastin and everlastin.

"SUE DAWSON."

He put the letter into his pocket and went to the window and drew down
the shade. Then he locked the door and placed the candle on the
mantel-piece and stood an open book before it, so that his bed was in
the shadow. He listened to hear if Washburn was moving below, then
knelt by the bed and covered his face with his hands. He tried to
pray, but could think of no words to express his desires. He had never
been so sorely tried. Even if he could school himself to forgetting
Harriet's old love and the act of deceitfulness into which her love had
drawn her, could he ever escape Mrs. Dawson's persecutions? Would she
not, even if he won and married Harriet, pursue and taunt him with the
girl's old love, as she had Clem Dill? And how could he stand
that--he, whose ideal of woman and woman's constancy had always been so
high?

He rose, sat on the edge of the bed, and clasped his hands between his
knees. The room was in darkness except the spot of light on the wall
behind the book. Below he heard the horses crunching their corn and
hay. He took from his pocket Sue Dawson's letters and the one from
Sally and wrapped them in a piece of paper. Then he looked about for a
place to hide them. In a corner overhead he saw a jutting rafter, and
behind it a dark niche where the shingles sloped to the wall. It was
too high for him to reach from the floor, so he placed the table
beneath the spot, and, mounting it, pushed the packet tightly into the
corner. Then he stepped down and removed the table, cautiously, that
Washb