Sealed Lips — page 272: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

264 SEALED LIPS. ing her large eyes where truth seemed to brim over like those of a child’s, she said: | “This is what passed: One hour before his death, your husband wished to see a notary in Pau, and sent Patrice with a letter. He probably repented of his rigorous will, and wished to change it. Unfor- tunately he was dead almost immediately after, you remember. But there is every evidence that he stained his finger in writing that letter.” Jenny thought, leaning her head on her hands. She could see her husband panting for breath on the pillows. She could hear these words, “I made this stain in giving my last pledge of affection to those that I love.” Certainly her mother’s explana- tion was plausible, but she was still overwhelmed with grief. Without partaking in her mother’s oriental superstitions, she was not entirely free from them. “Do you understand now?” asked Madame Sauval. Jenny raised her head and slowly said, with her eyes fixed upon the bed, with as much emotion as if the body still lay there: “Yes, I understand one thing that is that the dead has just spoken to me. I must not sign.” “What!” cried her mother, bounding from -her seat, “you will not sign?” “Not to-day, not so soon, not in this house. Per- haps we are committing a sacrilege, something very wrong. Think of it! he died there! At this moment I am greatly troubled; I wish to leave; I Commclhools.eo im