As a rule, from the type that demanded the
letter back, he only caught sight of the tip of the secret's ears. From
those--they were nearly always the women--who swiftly asked if he
hadn't destroyed the letters, he caught shame-faced gleams of the
truth.
But those who asked between pensive sips, how the facts or the letter
had come his way, these were the ones who yielded Deasey the richest
harvest of rattling skeleton bones.
Indeed, it was curiously instructive how John Jamieson laid down a
causeway of gleaming stepping-stones, so that Deasey might cross
lightly over the turgid waters of his victims' souls. At the words,
accompanied by John Jamieson--"A certain dark page of your past
history--help yourself, me boy!--has been inadvertently revealed to me,
but is for ever sacred in me breast!"--it was strange to see how, from
the underworld of the man's mind, there would trip out the company of
misshapen hobgoblins and gnomes which had been locked away in darkness,
maybe, this many a year.
"Well--how would I get the time to clane the childer and to wash their
heads, and I working all the day at curing stinkin' hides! 'Twas
Herself should have got it, and Herself alone!".
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