the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you would hardly believe
me. Let me merely say that I want to tell you a story, and tell it
without much further preface.

[Illustration]

Two days ago I chanced, for no special reason, to open the drawers
of an old writing-table, which for years past had stood, unused, in
a corner of an upper room. In one I found a rusty screw, in another
a couple of dusty envelopes, in a third a piece of sealing-wax,
half-a-dozen nibs, and a broken pencil. The fourth, and last drawer,
was very stiff. For a long time it defied my efforts, and it was only
by a great exertion of strength that I was at last able to wrench it
open. To my surprise I saw two packets of letters, tied together with
faded ribbon. I took them up, and then remembered, with a start, what
they were. They were all in their envelopes, and all were addressed,
in the same hand-writing, to Sir CHARLES CALLENDER, Bart., Curzon
Street, Mayfair. They were his wife's letters, and, after the
death of Sir CHARLES, whose sole executor I was, they came into my
possession,--Sir CHARLES, for some inscrutable reason, never having
destroyed them, although, after his wife's death, the reading of
them cannot have given him much pleasure. No doubt I ought to have
destroyed them. I had never read them; but there, in that forgotten
drawer, they had lain, the silent dust accumulating upon them as the
years rolled on. They reminded me of the story I am about to relate--a
story of which, I think, no one except myself has guessed the truth,
and which, in most of its details, I only knew from a paper, carefully
closed, heavily sealed, and addressed to me, which I found amongst my
friend's documents. It was in his hand-writing throughout, but I shall
tell it in my own words, and in my own way.