<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
<h3>WRITING A LETTER</h3>
<p>"If you insist," Trent said, "I suppose you will have your way. But I
had much rather write it when I am not with you. However, if I must,
bring me a tablet whiter than a star, or hand of hymning angel. Don't
underestimate the sacrifice I am making. I never felt less like
correspondence in my life."</p>
<p>She rewarded him.</p>
<p>"What shall I say?" he inquired, his pen hovering over the paper. "Shall
I compare him to a summer's day? What <i>shall</i> I say?"</p>
<p>"Say what you want to say," she suggested helpfully.</p>
<p>He shook his head. "What I want to say—what I have been wanting for the
past twenty-four hours to say to every man, woman, and child I met—is
'Mabel and I are betrothed, and joy is borne on burning wheels.' But
that wouldn't be a very good opening for a letter of strictly formal,
not to say sinister character. I have got as far as 'Dear Mr. Marlowe.'
What comes next?"</p>
<p>"I am sending you a manuscript which I thought you might like to see,"
she prompted as she came to his chair before the escritoire. "Something
of that kind. Please try. I want to see what you write, and I want it to
go to him at once. You see, I would be contented enough to leave things
as they are; but you say you must get at the truth, and if you must, I
want it to be as soon as possible. Do it now—you know you can if you
will—and I'll send it off the moment it is ready. Don't you ever feel
that?—the longing to get the worrying letter into the post and off your
hands, so that you can't recall it if you would, and it's no use fussing
any more about it."</p>
<p>"I will do as you wish," he said, and turned to the paper, which he
dated as from his hotel. Mrs. Manderson looked down at his bent head
with a gentle light in her eyes, and made as if to place a smoothing
hand upon his rather untidy crop of hair. But she did not touch it.
Going in silence to the piano, she began to play very softly. It was ten
minutes before Trent spoke.</p>
<p>"At last I am his faithfully. Do you want to see it?"</p>
<p>She ran across the twilight room, and turned on a reading lamp beside
the escritoire. Then, leaning on his shoulder, she read what follows:</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Dear Mr. Marlowe:</p>
<p>You will perhaps remember that we met, under unhappy circumstances,
in June of last year at Marlstone.</p>
<p>On that occasion it was my duty, as representing a newspaper, to
make an independent investigation of the circumstances of the death
of the late Sigsbee Manderson. I did so, and I arrived at certain
conclusions. You may learn from the enclosed manuscript, which was
originally written as a despatch for my newspaper, what those
conclusions were. For reasons which it is not necessary to state I
decided at the last moment not to make them public, or to
communicate them to you, and they are known to only two persons
beside myself.</p>
</div>
<p>At this point Mrs. Manderson raised her eyes quickly from the letter.
Her dark brows were drawn together. "Two persons?" she said with a note
of inquiry.</p>
<p>"Your uncle is the other. I sought him out last night and told him the
whole story. Have you anything against it? I always felt uneasy at
keeping it from him as I did, because I had led him to expect I should
tell him all I discovered, and my silence looked like mystery-making.
Now that it is to be cleared up finally, and there is no question of
shielding you, I wanted him to know everything. He is a very shrewd
adviser, too, in a way of his own; and I should like to have him with me
when I see Marlowe. I have a feeling that two heads will be better than
one on my side of the interview."</p>
<p>She sighed. "Yes, of course, uncle ought to know the truth. I hope there
is nobody else at all." She pressed his hand. "I so much want all that
horror buried—buried deep. I am very happy now, dear, but I shall be
happier still when you have satisfied that curious mind of yours and
found out everything, and stamped down the earth upon it all." She
continued her reading.</p>
<div class="blockquot"><p>Quite recently, however, (the letter went on) facts have come to my
knowledge which have led me to change my decision. I do not mean
that I shall publish what I discovered, but that I have determined
to approach you and ask you for a private statement. If you have
anything to say which would place the matter in another light, I
can imagine no reason why you should withhold it.</p>
<p>I expect, then, to hear from you when and where I may call upon
you; unless you would prefer the interview to take place at my
hotel. In either case I desire that Mr. Cupples, whom you will
remember, and who has read the enclosed document, should be present
also.</p>
<p>Faithfully yours,</p>
<p><span class="smcap">Philip Trent</span>.</p>
</div>
<p>"What a very stiff letter!" she said. "Now I am sure you couldn't have
made it any stiffer in your own rooms."</p>
<p>Trent slipped the letter and enclosure into a long envelop. "This thing
mustn't run any risk of going wrong. It would be best to send a special
messenger with orders to deliver it into his own hands. If he's away it
oughtn't to be left."</p>
<p>She nodded. "I can arrange that. Wait here for a little."</p>
<p>When Mrs. Manderson returned, he was hunting through the music-cabinet.
She sank on the carpet beside him in a wave of dark brown skirts. "Tell
me something, Philip," she said.</p>
<p>"If it is among the few things that I know."</p>
<p>"When you saw uncle last night, did you tell him about—about us?"</p>
<p>"I did not," he answered. "I remembered you had said nothing about
telling any one. It is for you—isn't it?—to decide whether we take the
world into our confidence at once or later on."</p>
<p>"Then will you tell him?" She looked down at her clasped hands. "I wish
<i>you</i> to tell him. Perhaps if you think you will guess why. There! that
is settled." She lifted her eyes again to his, and for a time there was
silence between them.</p>
<p>He leaned back at length in the deep chair. "What a world!" he said.
"Mabel, will you play something on the piano that expresses mere joy,
the genuine article, nothing feverish or like thorns under a pot, but
joy that has decided in favor of the universe. It's a mood that can't
last altogether, so we had better get all we can out of it."</p>
<p>She went to the instrument and struck a few chords while she thought.
Then she began to work with all her soul at the theme in the last
movement of the Ninth Symphony which is like the sound of the opening of
the gates of Paradise.</p>
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