topmost one. "A very peculiar handwriting." Then taking up the letter, as if to further examine the writing, I observed that he was studying the postmark as well, which, being offended at his unmannerly curiosity, I sincerely hoped was illegible. But that it was only too fatally plain will soon appear.
With an air of hauteur I seldom assumed, I recalled the servant, and ordered the letter to be taken at once to Miss Jorgensen. Before leaving the house I was informed that Miss Jorgensen wished to speak to me.
"Mr. Hurst has done a most imprudent thing!" she exclaimed, the moment I was inside the door. "I ought to have published a 'personal,' or done something to let him know I could not go to the post-office, and to account for his not hearing from me."
"He has returned to the city?"
"Yes!" She fairly ground her teeth with rage at this "stupidity," as she termed it. "He always does the very thing he ought never to have done, and leaves undone the things most important to do. Of course he cannot come here, and I can not go to him without incurring the greatest risk. I really do not know what to do next."
Tears were now coursing down her pale cheeks—tears, it seemed, as much of anger as of sorrow.
"Let him take care of himself," I said, rather hotly. "It is not your province to care for him as you do."
She gave me an indescribable look. "What can you, what can any one know about it? He may want money; how can he take care of himself in such circumstances without money? I sent for you to contrive some plan by which he can be communicated with. Do tell me at once what to do."
"How can I tell you, when, as you say, I do not know what is required. You wish to see him, I presume?"
"How can I—O, I dislike so much to ask this of you—but will you take a message to him?" She asked this desperately, half expecting me to decline, as decline I did.
