He did not allot to it more than
twenty lines out of a full column. It was quite enough to give me a
sleepless night. I perceived that it would have been a sort of treason
to let Miss Haldin come without preparation upon that journalistic
discovery which would infallibly be reproduced on the morrow by French
and Swiss newspapers. I had a very bad time of it till the morning,
wakeful with nervous worry and night-marish with the feeling of
being mixed up with something theatrical and morbidly affected. The
incongruity of such a complication in those two women's lives was
sensible to me all night in the form of absolute anguish. It seemed due
to their refined simplicity that it should remain concealed from them
for ever. Arriving at an unconscionably early hour at the door of their
apartment, I felt as if I were about to commit an act of vandalism....
The middle-aged servant woman led me into the drawing-room where there
was a duster on a chair and a broom leaning against the centre table.
The motes danced in the sunshine; I regretted I had not written a letter
instead of coming myself, and was thankful for the brightness of the
day. Miss Haldin in a plain black dress came lightly out of her mother's
room with a fixed uncertain smile on her lips.
I pulled the paper out of my pocket.
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