Explore "The Pagan's Cup" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mrs Jeal was not pleased. She was a woman who liked to make mischief, and preferred to leave sorrow rather than joy behind her. In her time she had caused a good deal of misery, and she had always rejoiced over it. But now that she had been forced to undo the evil she had committed, her heart ached. Bad as Pratt was, his wife was worse, and if he had indeed killed her, as he had threatened, he would have been doing a service to mankind. Mrs Jeal was a noxious snake who should have been killed without pity.
On leaving the Vicarage she went home at once and found the cottage empty, as Pearl had not yet returned. Mrs Jeal brought out the letter and again read it. Then she turned white and shivered; finally she put it into the fire, and watched it burn to black ashes. Afterwards she filled herself a glass of brandy and drank it neat. Yet she was an abstemious woman as a rule. There must have been something very terrible in that letter to make her take to strong drink. And what was in it no one in Colester ever found out. Having burned it, Mrs Jeal put it out of her mind as well as she was able. Yet often afterwards she shivered to think of what would have happened had it been opened in the Vicarage library. "A narrow shave that," muttered Mrs Jeal.