THE TOUCHSTONE
wife: her beauty was extraordinary, but it seemed to him the beauty of a smooth sea along an unlit coast. She frightened him.
He sat late in his study. He heard the parlor-maid lock the front door; then his wife went upstairs and the lights were put out. His brain was like some great empty hall with an echo in it: one thought reverberated endlessly. . . At length he drew his chair to the table and began to write. He addressed an envelope and then slowly re-read what he had written.
"My dear Flamel,
"Many apologies for not sending you sooner the enclosed check, which represents the customary percentage on the sale of the 'Letters.'
"Trusting you will excuse the oversight,
"Stephen Glennard."
He let himself out of the darkened house and dropped the letter in the post-box at the corner.
The next afternoon he was detained late at his
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