I gathered the dust tenderly in
tissue paper, and prepared to take it downstairs to Mrs. Vanderbridge.
It was not until then that some letters tied loosely together with a
silver cord caught my eyes, and while I picked them up, I remember
thinking that they must be the ones for which I had been looking so
long. Then, as the cord broke in my grasp and I gathered the letters
from the lid of the desk, a word or two flashed back at me through the
torn edges of the envelopes, and I realized that they were love letters
written, I surmised, some fifteen years ago, by Mr. Vanderbridge to his
first wife.

"It may hurt her to see them," I thought, "but I don't dare destroy
them. There is nothing I can do except give them to her."

As I left the room, carrying the letters and the ashes of the flowers,
the idea of taking them to the husband instead of to the wife, flashed
through my mind. Then--I think it was some jealous feeling about the
phantom that decided me--I quickened my steps to a run down the
staircase.

"They would bring her back. He would think of her more than ever," I
told myself, "so he shall never see them. He shall never see them if I
can prevent it." I believe it occurred to me that Mrs. Vanderbridge
would be generous enough to give them to him--she was capable of rising
above her jealousy, I knew--but I determined that she shouldn't do it
until I had reasoned it out with her. "If anything on earth would bring
back the Other One for good, it would be his seeing these old letters,"
I repeated as I hastened down the hall.

Mrs. Vanderbridge was lying on the couch before the fire, and I noticed
at once that she had been crying. The drawn look in her sweet face went
to my heart, and I felt that I would do anything in the world to comfort
her. Though she had a book in her hand, I could see that she had not
been reading. The electric lamp on the table by her side was already
lighted, leaving the rest of the room in shadow, for it was a grey day
with a biting edge of snow in the air. It was all very charming in the
soft light; but as soon as I entered I had a feeling of oppression that
made me want to run out into the wind. If you have ever lived in a
haunted house--a house pervaded by an unforgettable past--you will
understand the sensation of melancholy that crept over me the minute the
shadows began to fall. It was not in myself--of this I am sure, for I
have naturally a cheerful temperament--it was in the space