"I've a good mind to burn them, and so put an end to all this confounded
mystery; yet--"
Hugh Trethowen hesitated.
Standing pensively before the fire in his own den at Coombe a fortnight
after his marriage, he was examining the photograph and partially
destroyed letters, the unaccountable presence of which among his
brother's possessions had caused him so much perturbation. As he held
the photograph in his hand the pictured face of Valerie seemed to smile
with tantalising seductiveness, and, with a fond husbands admiration, he
told himself that in no way had her beauty deteriorated, but, on the
contrary, she had grown handsomer.
Nevertheless, the fact that it had, together with the letters, been
carefully concealed by his brother, was a problem which frequently
caused him a good deal of uneasy speculation. The wording of the
missives was strangely ominous, and there was no disguising the fact
that they were in his wife's handwriting.
"I'm half inclined to tear them up and burn them. If I did, they
certainly would worry me no longer," he argued, aloud. "I wish I could
let her see them, and ask for an explanation. But I cannot; it would
show mistrust."
He lifted his eyes from the photograph and gazed perplexedly around the
apartment. More than once he had been sorely tempted to destroy the
carefully-preserved documents; still the mystery surrounding them was
fascinating, and he vaguely hoped that some day he might elucidate it.