Short breath, lassitude,
loss of appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries
which Mr. Cockle and his Antibilious Pills profess to cure, are no
cheering bosom friends; but when a man's breast-bone is gradually
growing into his stomach, they will make their appearance; and small
blame to him whose temper suffers from their gentle hints that he has
a mortal body as well as an immortal soul.
But most fretting of all was the discovery that Lucia knew--if not all
about his original name--still enough to keep him in dread lest she
should learn more.
It was now twelve months and more that this new terror had leapt up
and stared in his face. He had left a letter about--a thing which he
was apt to do--in which the Whitbury lawyer made some allusions to his
little property; and he was sure that Lucia had seen it; the hated
name of Briggs certainly she had not seen; for Elsley had torn it out
the moment he opened the letter: but she had seen enough, as he soon
found, to be certain that he had, at some time or other, passed under
a different name.
If Lucia had been a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, she would
have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and lovingly asked him
to tell her all: but, in her left-handed Irish fashion, she kept the
secret to herself, and thought it a very good joke to have him in her
power, and to be able to torment him about that letter when he got out
of temper.
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