the next day
the first paper reached him, and they who were concerned in it did
not spare to send him the copies as they were issued. Having read
the first, he was not able to refuse to read what followed. In each
issue they were carried on, and, as was told of him in Carmarthen, he
lingered over every agonizing detail of the venom which was entering
into his soul. It was in vain that he tried to hide the paper, or to
pretend to be indifferent to its coming. Mrs Griffith knew very well
where the paper was, and knew also that every word had been perused.
The month's notice which had been accepted from her and the butler in
lieu of the three months first offered had now expired. The man had
gone, but she remained, as did the two other women. Nothing was said
as to the cause of their remaining; but they remained. As for Cousin
Henry himself, he was too weak, too frightened, too completely
absorbed by the horrors of his situation to ask them why they stayed,
or to have asked them why they went.

He understood every word that was written of him with sharp, minute
intelligence. Though his spirit was cowed, his mind was still alive
to all the dangers of his position. Things were being said of him,
charges were insinuated, which he declared to himself to be false. He
had not destroyed the will. He had not even hidden it. He had only
put a book into its own place, carrying out as he did so his innocent
intention when he had first lifted the book. When these searchers had
come, doing their work so idly, with such incurious futility, he had
not concealed the book. He had left it there on its shelf beneath
their hands. Who could say that he had been guilty? If the will were
found now, who could reasonably suggest that there had been guilt on
his part? If all were known,--except that chance glance of his eye
which never could be known,--no one could say that he was other than
innocent! And yet he knew of himself that he would lack strength to
stand up in court and endure the sharp questions and angry glances
of a keen lawyer. His very knees would fail to carry him through the
court. The words would stick in his jaws. He would shake and shiver
and faint before the assembled eyes. It would be easier for him to
throw himself from the rocks on which he had lain dreaming into the
sea than to go into a court of law and there tell his own story as
to the will. They could not force him to go. He thought he could
perceive as much as that.