"I have never opened it," he said. "There it is, just as it was handed
to me."

"You don't know what is in it?" asked Kitty in a shocked voice. "Why,
it may be that--"

"Oh, yes, I know what is in it!" he replied. "Her brother's confidences
were enough. I didn't want to read it. I can imagine it all."

"It's pretty cowardly," remarked Kitty.

"No, I think not. It would only hurt, and the hurting could do no good.
I can hear what it says, and I don't want to see it."

He held the letter up to his ear whimsically. Then he handed it back to
her, and she replaced it in the desk.

"So, there it is, and there it is," he sighed. "You have got my story,
and it's bad enough, but you can see it's not what Burlingame suggested."

"Burlingame--but Burlingame's beneath notice," rejoined Kitty. "Isn't
he, mother?"

Mrs. Tynan nodded. Then, as though with sudden impulse, Kitty came
forward to Crozier and leaned over him. The look of a mother was in her
eyes. Somehow she seemed to herself twenty years older than this man
with the heart of a boy, who was afraid of his own wife.

"It's time for your beef-tea, and when you've had it you must get your
sleep," she said, with a hovering solicitude.