The others resented postponement, but it was just his scruples that charmed me. To this his answer was prompt. Oh thank god no. And is the record yours? He hung fire again. A woman's. She has been dead these twenty years. She sent me the pages in question before she died. She was the most agreeable woman I've ever known in her position. She would have been worthy of any whatever. It wasn't simply that she said so, but that I knew she hadn't. I was sure, I could see. You'll easily judge why when you hear. Because the thing had been such a scare, he continued to fix me. You are acute. He quitted the fire and dropped back into his chair. Probably not till the second post. It was almost the tone of hope. Everybody will stay, cried the ladies whose departure had been fixed. Missus Griffin however expressed the need for a little more light. Who was it she was in love with? The story will tell, I took upon myself to reply. Oh I can't wait for the story. The story won't tell, said Douglas. Not in any literal vulgar way. More's the pity then. Won't you tell Douglas? Well, if I don't know who she was in love with, I know who he was. Let me say here distinctly to have done with it, that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death, when it was in sight, committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of these days and that on the same spot, with immense effect, he began to read to our hushed little circle, on the night of the fourth. The departing ladies who had said they would stay didn't of course, thank heaven, stay. They departed in consequence of arrangements made. In a rage of curiosity as they professed, produced by the touches with which he had already worked us up.