Dolly never came to work the next morning, but there arrived a little letter from her to Mr. Ripley, giving notice, that was all, with no address or clew to her whereabouts, and an intimation that it was understood she sacrificed her position—pitiful heaven, for what?

 

My employer tossed the note to me indifferently, asking me to see about the engagement of a fresh hand, if necessary. He little guessed what those few simple words meant to two of his staff, or foresaw the tragedy to which they were the prelude¹.

 

When the dinner hour came I followed Duke out and put the scrap² of paper into his hand without a word. He was not unprepared for it, for he already knew, of course, that his worst apprehensions³ were realized by the non-appearance of the girl at her usual place in the office.

 

He read it in silence, and in silence handed it back to me. His face in twenty-four hours seemed to have grown to be the face of an old man. All its once half-sad, half-humorous thoughtfulness was set into a single hard expression of some dark resolve.

 

“Well,” he said, suddenly, stopping in his walk and facing me, for I still kept pace with him.

 

“What do you intend doing, Duke?”

 

“I have one mission in life, Mr. Trender. Good-afternoon to you.”

 

I fell back and watched him go from me. Maimed as I was myself, how could I in any way help him to cure his crueler hurt?

 

But now began a curious somber⁴ struggle of cross purposes. To find out where Jason had sunk his burrow⁵ and hidden the spoils of his ugly false sport—there we worked in harness. It was only when the quarry⁶ should be run down that we must necessarily disagree as to the terms of its disposition⁷.

 

For myself: A new despairing trouble had been woven into my life by the hand that had already

分享到：