My poor, maddened, guilt-haunted girl had made the irreparable mistake of letting this note of mine fly unconsumed up the chimney, and she might have made others equally incriminating.

It would be hard to find an alibi for her if suspicion once turned her way.

She had not met me at the train.

The unknown but doubtless easily-to-be-found man who had handed me her note could swear to that fact.
Then the note itself! I had destroyed it, it is true, but its phrases were so present to my mind--had been so branded into it by the terrors of the tragedy which they appeared to foreshadow, that I had a dreadful feeling that this man's eye could read them there.

I remember that under the compelling power of this fancy, my hand rose to my brow outspread and concealing, as if to interpose a barrier between him and them.