Then she would KNOW that he had deceived her--and
lied to her--
And then he remembered that, instead of putting the certificate in his
pocketbook, he had found the latter too small for the purpose, and had
put the document in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. And in that
waistcoat pocket he found it.
So that was all right, all right so far; but the fact remained that,
instead of the troublesome thing--damning evidence of his guilt and
deception--reposing safely in the vaults of a Boston bank, where he had
intended putting it, it was here, in the house, in the house of Miss
Martha Phipps, who might find it at any time.
He tried various hiding places, the drawers of his bureau, the
table drawer, under the straw matting in the corner, but none seemed
satisfactorily secure. Under the matting was, at first thought, ideal,
but, after secreting it there and getting into bed, he remembered that
Martha had declared his room needed new matting and, if ever she
could afford that cost, new matting it should have. Having come into
possession of five thousand dollars, she might feel that she could now
afford it. He climbed, shivering, out of bed again, resurrected the
certificate and hid it under his pillow, an orthodox but safe hiding
place for that night only. The next morning he wrapped it in a summer
undergarment and placed the said garment at the bottom of a pile of
similar intimacies in his bureau drawer.
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