About the other matter I was innocent.  I swear it again.  I never did it.  You are the only one in all the world.  I would rather be dead than go on like this.

It is unsigned.

I stared from the letter to Mrs. Dane.  She was watching me, her face grave and rather sad.

“You and I, Horace,” she said, “live our orderly lives.  We eat, and sleep, and talk, and even labor.  We think we are living.  But for the last day or two I have been seeing visions—­you and I and the rest of us, living on the surface, and underneath, carefully kept down so it will not make us uncomfortable, a world of passion and crime and violence and suffering.  That letter is a tragedy.”

But if she had any suspicion then as to the writer, and I think she had not, she said nothing, and soon after I started for home.  I knew that one of two things would have happened there:  either my wife would have put away the fire-tongs, which would indicate a truce, or they would remain as they had been, which would indicate that she still waited for the explanation I could not give.  It was with a certain tension, therefore, that I opened my front door.

The fire-tongs still stood in the stand.

In one way, however, Mrs. Johnson’s refusal to speak to me that evening had a certain value, for it enabled me to leave the house without explanation, and thus to discover that, if an overcoat had been left in place of my own, it had been taken away.  It also gave me an opportunity to return the fire-tongs, a proceeding which I had considered would assist in a return of the entente cordiale at home, but which most unjustly appeared to have exactly the opposite effect.  It has been my experience that the most innocent action may, under certain circumstances, assume an appearance of extreme guilt.

By Saturday the condition of affairs between my wife and myself remained in statu quo, and I had decided on a bold step.  This was to call a special meeting of the Neighborhood Club, without Miss Jeremy, and put before them the situation as it stood at that time, with a view to formulating a future course of action, and also of publicly vindicating myself before my wife.

In deference to Herbert Robinson’s recent attack of influenza, we met at the Robinson house.  Sperry himself wheeled Mrs. Dane over, and made a speech.

“We have called this meeting,” he said, “because a rather singular situation has developed.  What was commenced purely as an interesting experiment has gone beyond that stage.  We find ourselves in the curious position of taking what comes very close to being a part in a domestic tragedy.  The affair is made more delicate by the fact that this tragedy involves people who, if not our friends, at least are very well known to us.  The purpose of this meeting, to be brief, is to determine whether the Neighborhood Club, as a body, wishes to go on with the investigation, or to stop where we are.”