He was conscious that he occupied the singular position of being more ridiculous than the husband--whose invincible and complacent simplicity stung him like the most exquisite irony.

For an instant he was almost goaded into the fury of declaring that he had broken off from the writer of the letters forever, but its inconsistency with the chivalrous attitude he had just taken occurred to him in time to prevent him from becoming doubly absurd.

His rage with Seth Davis seemed to him the only feeling left that was genuine and rational, and yet, now that Uncle Ben had gone, even that had a spurious ring.

It was necessary for him to lash himself into a fury over the hypothesis that the letters MIGHT have been Cressy's, and desecrated by that scoundrel's touch.

Perhaps he had read them and left them to be picked up by others.
He looked over them carefully to see if their meaning would, to the ordinary reader, appear obvious and compromising.