Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment by Edward Bellamy (books for new readers .TXT) 📖

acted so?"

Joseph smiled,--one does n't appreciate the pure luxury of a smile until he has been deprived of it for a while,--lit a cigar, sat down with his legs over the arm of his arm-chair,--he had not indulged in an unconstrained posture for two days,--and told his side of the story. He explained how, thanks to that tale he was reading, and the ghastly reverie it suggested, his nerves were all on edge when Mrs. Kilgore burst in with a piece of news whose extraordinary coincidence with his train of thought had momentarily thrown him off his balance; and he tried to make them see that, after that first scene, all the rest was a logical sequence.

Mrs. Kilgore, by virtue of her finer feminine nervous organization, understood him so readily that he saw he had made a mistake in not unbosoming himself to her at first. But Silas evidently did not so easily take his idea.

"But why did n't you just tell us that you had n't done it, and end the misunderstanding at one blow?" he asked.

"Why, don't you see," replied Joseph, "that to deny a thing before you are distinctly suspected of it is to suggest suspicion; while to deny it afterward, unless you have proof to offer, is useless?"

"What should we have come to but for the capture of the real murderer?" cried Mrs. Kilgore, with a shudder.
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Publication Date: 08-16-2010

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