Her voice sank when she put the questions about Miss Fairlie, and
she turned her head farther and farther away from me. I thought I
detected, in the alteration of her manner, an uneasy consciousness
of the risk she had run in sending the anonymous letter, and I
instantly determined so to frame my answer as to surprise her into
owning it.

"Miss Fairlie was not very well or very happy this morning," I
said.

She murmured a few words, but they were spoken so confusedly, and
in such a low tone, that I could not even guess at what they
meant.

"Did you ask me why Miss Fairlie was neither well nor happy this
morning?" I continued.

"No," she said quickly and eagerly--"oh no, I never asked that."

"I will tell you without your asking," I went on. "Miss Fairlie
has received your letter."

She had been down on her knees for some little time past,
carefully removing the last weather-stains left about the
inscription while we were speaking together. The first sentence
of the words I had just addressed to her made her pause in her
occupation, and turn slowly without rising from her knees, so as
to face me. The second sentence literally petrified her. The
cloth she had been holding dropped from her hands--her lips fell