“Suppose, however, I chose to know what was in the package, and, having ascertained, act my judgment about returning it to the party from whom you obtained it.  In such case I might see fit to restore or cause it to be restored, to the party, without any marks of violence having been used being apparent.  If everything is not right, probably no questions would be asked by the party having charge of the package.  If there is no underhand work going on, and the papers are what they profess to be, nobody is compromised but yourself, so far as I can see, and you are compromised at any rate, Mr. Gridley, at least in the good graces of the party from whom you obtained the documents.  Tell that party that I took the package without opening it, and shall return it, very likely, without breaking the seal.  Will consider of the matter, say a couple of days.  Then you shall hear from me, and she shall hear from you.  So.  So.  Yes, that’s it.  A nice business.  A thing to sleep on.  You had better leave the whole matter of dealing with the package to me.  If I see fit to send it back with the seal unbroken, that is my affair.  But keep perfectly quiet, if you please, Mr. Gridley, about the whole matter.  Mr. Bradshaw is off, as you know, and the business on which he is gone is important,—­very important.  He can be depended on for that; he has acted all along as if he had a personal interest in the success of our firm beyond his legal relation to it.”

Mr. Penhallow’s light burned very late in the office that night, and the following one.  He looked troubled and absent-minded, and when Miss Laura ventured to ask him how long Mr. Bradshaw was like to be gone, he answered her in such a way that the girl who waited at table concluded that he did n’t mean to have Miss Laury keep company with Mr. Bradshaw, or he’d never have spoke so dreadful hash to her when she asked about him.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Susan Posey’s trial.

A day or two after Myrtle Hazard returned to the village, Master Byles Gridley, accompanied by Gifted Hopkins, followed her, as has been already mentioned, to the same scene of the principal events of this narrative.  The young man had been persuaded that it would be doing injustice to his talents to crowd their fruit prematurely upon the market.  He carried his manuscript back with him, having relinquished the idea of publishing for the present.  Master Byles Gridley, on the other hand, had in his pocket a very flattering proposal, from the same publisher to whom he had introduced the young poet, for a new and revised edition of his work, “Thoughts on the Universe,” which was to be remodelled in some respects, and to have a new title not quite so formidable to the average reader.