Having read the brief letter, the husband draws another from a side-pocket: "There may be a mistake about the handwriting," he murmurs, "let us compare them."
The second letter is addressed to "EUGENE LIVINGSTONE, ESQ.," and its contents, which the husband traces by the light of the taper, are as follows:
DEAR EUGENE:--Sorry to hear that you have such sad news from Boston. Must you go to-night? Send me word and I'll try to go with you. Thine, ever,
Long and intently, the husband compared these two letters. His countenance underwent many changes. But there could be no doubt of it--both letters were written by the same hand.
"He wrote to me early this morning, and to my wife about an hour afterward,--as soon as he received my answer. I found the letter to her upon the floor of this chamber, only two hours ago."
He replaced both letters in his vest pocket.
Then taking the taper, he bent his steps toward the room at the head of the marble staircase. The young nurse was fast asleep on the couch, near the cradle.
Eugene bent over the cradle. Resting its rosy cheek on its bent arm, the child was sleeping there, its auburn hair still tangled about its forehead. He could not help pressing his lips to that forehead, and a tear--the only tear that he shed--fell from his hot eye-ball, and sparkled like a pearl upon the baby's cheek.
Then Eugene returned to the bedchamber, and sat down beside the bed, still holding the taper in his grasp. The light fell softly over the unruffled coverlet.
"I remember the night when she first crossed yonder threshold, and slept in this bed."
There were traces of womanish weakness upon his bronzed face, but he banished them in a moment, and the expression of his eye and lip became fixed and resolute.
He sat for five minutes with his elbow on his knee, and his forehead in his hand.
Then rising, he opened his carpet-bag, and took from thence a black robe, with wide sleeves, and a cowl. It took but a moment to assume his robe, and draw the cowl over his dark locks. He caught a glance at his face, thus framed in the velvet cowl, and started as he beheld the contrast between its ashy hues and the dark folds which concealed it.
"'THE TEMPLE!'" he muttered, and pressed his hand against his forehead,--"I believe I remember the pass word."