Have you heard otherwise, sir ?" He was prepared for equivocation, possibly for denial, but not for attack.

His manner changed and showed distrust and I saw that I had lost rather than made by this venturous move.
"Is this your writing ?" he suddenly asked, showing me a morsel of paper which he had drawn from his vest pocket.
I looked, and felt that I now understood what the pines had been trying to tell me for the last few hours.

That compromising scrap of writing had not been destroyed.

It existed for her and my undoing! Then doubt came.
Fate could not juggle thus with human souls and purposes.

I had simply imagined myself to have recognised the words lengthening and losing themselves in a blur before my eyes.