His lips were set in a manner that was
strange to him, and a fear was in his heart--a fear of the cleanliness
which may be akin to godliness, but to which a pressed flower is as
the dust upon the walls. At the door he hesitated, bewildered. On his
desk was heaped a pile of papers, in which letters, lecture notes, old
pamphlets, were scattered in contemptuous disorder. Jane had just
dropped an armful into the fire which blazed with that comfortless
instability common to paper fires in the daytime. She had gathered
another armful and was advancing toward the hearth, when she saw the
apparition in the door-way and stopped. The professor was paler than
usual, and his hands shook a little.
"Do you know what you're doing, Jane?" he asked, quietly enough.
"Yes," she answered defiantly, "I do. You've had 'em hanging around
long enough."
"You know whose letters they are?"
"Yes," she said. "Why, what--"
The professor, forgetting his rheumatism, had advanced in two strides,
and with one blow knocked the papers from her arms, so that they lay
scattered on the floor.
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