He took up one
of the sheets. It had a great stain on it. The bottle must have been
overturned! But was it ink? No; it stood too thick on the paper.
With a gruesome shiver Donal wetted his finger and tried the surface
of it: a little came off, a tinge of suspicious brown. There was
writing on the paper! What was it? He held the faded lines close to
the candle. They were not difficult to decipher. He sat down on the
stool, and read thus--his reading broken by the stain: there was no
date:--
"My husband for such I will--blot--are in the sight of
God--blot--men why are you so cruel what--blot--deserve these
terrors--blot--in thought have I--blot--hard upon me to think of
another."
Here the writing came below the blot, and went on unbroken.
"My little one is gone and I am left lonely oh so lonely. I cannot
but think that if you had loved me as you once did I should yet be
clasping my little one to my bosom and you would have a daughter to
comfort you after I am gone. I feel sure I cannot long survive
this--ah there my hand has burst out bleeding again, but do not
think I mind it, I know it was only an accident, you never meant to
do it, though you teased me by refusing to say so--besides it is
nothing. You might draw ever drop of blood from my body and I would
not care if only you would not make my heart bleed so. Oh, it is
gone all over my paper and you will think I have done it to let you
see how it bleeds--but I cannot write it all over again it is too
great a labour and too painful to write, so you must see it just as
it is.
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