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such that if the poor woman had gone down on her knees to beseech me never to mention them again I would have treated the proceeding as a bad joke. I have got them but I cant show them, she added. Not even to me? Ah, Miss Tita! I groaned, with a voice of infinite remonstrance and reproach. She colored, and the tears came back to her eyes; I saw that it cost her a kind of anguish to take such a stand but that a dreadful sense of duty had descended upon her. It made me quite sick to find myself confronted with that particular obstacle; all the more that it appeared to me I had been extremely encouraged to leave it out of account. I almost considered that Miss Tita had assured me that if she had no greater hindrance than that! You dont mean to say you made her a deathbed promise? It was precisely against your doing anything of that sort that I thought I was safe. Oh, I would rather she had burned the papers outright than that! No, it isnt a promise, said Miss Tita. Pray what is it then? She hesitated and then she said, She tried to burn them, but I prevented it. She had hid them in her bed. In her bed? Between the mattresses. Thats where she put them when she took them out of the trunk. I cant understand how she did it, because Olimpia didnt help her. She tells me so, and I believe her. My aunt only told her afterward, so that she shouldnt touch the bedanything but the sheets. So it was badly made, added Miss Tita simply. I should think so! And how did she try to burn them? She didnt try much; she was too weak, those last days. But she told meshe charged me. Oh, it was terrible! She couldnt speak after that night; she could only make signs. And what did you do? I took them away. I locked them up. In the secretary? Yes, in the secretary, said Miss Tita, reddening again. Did you tell her you would burn them? No, I didnton purpose. On purpose to gratify me? Yes, only for that. And what good will you have done me if after all you wont show them? Oh, none; I know thatI know that. And did she believe you had destroyed them? I dont know what she believed at the last. I couldnt tellshe was too far gone. Then if there was no promise and no assurance I cant see what ties you. |
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