Your characterization, as far as it
goes, would fit men who write very differently from this. It fits me,
for instance, and yet look at my angular scrawl." He held up a specimen
of his own irregular hand, beside the elegant penmanship of the note,
and Larcher had to admit himself a humbug as a graphologist.
"But," he demanded, "did my description happen to fit that particular
man--Francis Turl?"
"Oh, more or less," said Davenport, evasively, as if not inclined to give
any information about that person. This apparent disinclination increased
Larcher's hidden curiosity as to who Francis Turl might be, and why
Davenport had never mentioned him before, and what might be between the
two for settlement.
Davenport put Turl's writing back into the drawer, but continued to
regard his own. "'A vile cramped hand,'" he quoted. "I hate it, as I have
grown to hate everything that partakes of me, or proceeds from me.
Sometimes I fancy that my abominable handwriting had as much to do with
alienating a certain fair inconstant as the news of my reputed
unluckiness. Both coming to her at once, the combined effect was too
much."
"Why?--Did you break that news to her by letter?"
"That seems strange to you, perhaps. But you see, at first it didn't
occur to me that I should have to break it to her at all. We met abroad;
we were tourists whose paths happened to cross. Over there I almost
forgot about the bad luck. It wasn't till both of us were back in New
York, that I felt I should have to tell her, lest she might hear it first
from somebody else.
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