
    Mary took the paper and flattened it; then suddenly stood stiff up, with
irrepressible movement, as if petrified by some horror abruptly disclosed; her
face, strung and rigid; her lips compressed tight, to keep down some rising
exclamation. She dropped on her seat, as suddenly as if the braced muscles had
in an instant given way. But she spoke no word.
    »It is his handwriting - isn't it?« asked Esther, though Mary's manner was
almost confirmation enough.
    »You will not tell. You never will tell,« demanded Mary, in a tone so
sternly earnest, as almost to be threatening.
    »Nay, Mary,« said Esther, rather reproachfully, »I am not so bad as that. O
Mary, you cannot think I would do that, whatever I may be.«
    The tears sprang to her eyes at the idea that she was suspected of being one
who would help to inform against an old friend.
    Mary caught her sad and upbraiding look.
    »No! I know you would not tell, aunt. I don't know what I say, I am so
shocked. But say you will not tell. Do.«
    »No, indeed I will n't tell, come what may.«
    Mary sat still looking at the writing, and turning the paper round with
careful examination, trying to hope, but her very fears belying her hopes.
    »I thought you cared for the young man that's murdered,« observed Esther,
half-aloud; but feeling that she could not mistake this strange interest in the
suspected murderer, implied by Mary's eagerness to screen him from anything
which might strengthen suspicion against him. She had come, desirous to know the
extent of Mary's grief for Mr. Carson, and glad of the excuse afforded her by
the important scrap of paper. Her remark about its being Jem's handwriting, she
had, with this view of ascertaining Mary's state of feeling, felt to be most
imprudent the instant after she had uttered it; but Mary's anxiety that she
should not tell, was too great, and too decided, to leave a doubt as to her
interest for Jem. She grew more and more bewildered, and her dizzy head refused
to reason. Mary never spoke. She held the bit of paper firmly, determined to
retain possession of it, come what might; and anxious, and impatient, for her
aunt to go. As she sat, her face bore a likeness to Esther's dead child.
