"Kindly ask the messenger to wait. I will come and speak to him."
He opened the letter and read it. Then, having put it deliberately in
his pocket, he sat bending forward, staring at the grass. The newspaper
caught his eye. It was the _Herald_ of that morning. He raised it from
the ground, read the first leading article, and then a column "from a
correspondent" on which the article was based.
As he came to the end of it a strange premonition took possession of
him. He was still himself, but it seemed to him that the roar of some
approaching cataract was in his ears. He mastered himself with
difficulty, took a pencil from his pocket, and drew a wavering line
beside a passage in the article contributed by the _Herald's_
correspondent. The newspaper slid from his knee to the ground.
Then, with a groping hand, he sought again for Broadstone's letter, drew
it out of its envelope, and, with a mist before his eyes, felt for the
last page which, he seemed to remember, was blank. On this he traced,
with difficulty, a few lines, replaced the whole letter in the torn
envelope and wrote an address upon it--uncertainly crossing out his
own name.
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