"That is curious. Why, then, does she require to be confined?"
"Probably she will soon be released. She has improved very much since she came here."
"I am glad my aunt has so quiet a companion."
"Yes, they harmonize very well. They have never disagreed."
During one of Mr. Arthur Holman's visits Mrs. Kenyon managed to slip into his hands a sealed letter.
"Will you have the kindness," she asked quickly, "to put this into the post-office without informing the doctor?"
"Poor woman!" he thought to himself. "It will gratify her, and her letter will do no harm."
"I shall have to be indebted to your kindness for a postage-stamp," she said. "I cannot obtain them here."
"You will be sure not to mention this to the doctor?" said Mrs. Kenyon earnestly.
This was the letter, directed to Oliver, which found its way into the hands of Mr. Kenyon, and occasioned him so much uneasiness.
The more Oliver thought about it, the stranger it seemed to him that the letter intended for him should have been lost. In spite of Mr. Kenyon's plausible explanations, he felt that it had been suppressed. But why? He could conceive of no motive for the deed. He had no secret correspondent, nor had he any secret to conceal. He was quite at sea in his conjectures.
He could not help showing by his manner the suspicion he entertained. Mr. Kenyon did not appear to notice it, but it was far from escaping his attention. He knew something about character reading, and he saw that Oliver was very determined, and, once aroused, would make trouble.
"There is only one way," he muttered, as he furtively regarded the grave look on the boyish face of his step-son. "There is only one way, and I must try it!"
He felt that there was daily peril. Any day another letter might arrive at the post-office, and it might fall this time into Oliver's hands. True, he had received a letter from Dr. Fox, in which he expressed his inability to discover how the letter had been mailed without his knowledge, but assuring Mr. Kenyon that it should not happen again.
"I shall not hereafter allow your wife the use of writing materials," he said. "This will remove all danger."
Still Mr. Kenyon felt unsettled and ill at ease. In spite of all Dr. Fox's precautions, a letter might be written, and this would be most disastrous to him.