"gp50w10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker Gilbert)

the end without a sign. A pause, and he said aloud: "So this is how the
lines meet again, Varre Lepage!" He read the last sentence of the letter
aloud:

In the hope that you may soon give me good news of my husband,
I am, with all respect,

Faithfully yours,

ROSE LEPAGE.

Again he repeated: "With all respect, faithfully yours, Rose Lepage."

The dog Bouche looked up. Perhaps it detected something unusual in the
voice. It rose, came over, and laid its head on its master's knee.
Hume's hand fell gently on the head, and he said to the fire: "Ah, Rose
Lepage, you can write to Factor Field what you dare not write to your
husband if you knew. You might say to him then, 'With all love,' but not
'With all respect.'"

He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he took the dog's
head between his hands and said: "Listen, Bouche, and I will tell you a
story." The dog blinked, and pushed its nose against his arm.

"Ten years ago two young men who had studied and graduated together at
the same college were struggling together in their profession as civil
engineers. One was Clive Lepage and the other was Jaspar Hume. The one
was brilliant and persuasive, the other, persistent and studious. Lepage
could have succeeded in any profession; Hume had only heart and mind for
one.

"Only for one, Bouche, you understand. He lived in it, he loved it, he
saw great things to be achieved in it. He had got an idea. He worked at
it night and day, he thought it out, he developed it, he perfected it,
he was ready to give it to the world. But he was seized with illness,
became blind, and was ordered to a warm climate for a year. He left his
idea, his invention, behind him--his complete idea. While he was gone
his bosom friend stole his perfected idea--yes, stole it, and sold it
for twenty thousand dollars. He was called a genius, a great inventor.
And then he married her. You don't know her, Bouche. You never saw
beautiful Rose Varcoe, who, liking two men, chose the one who was
handsome and brilliant, and whom the world called a genius. Why didn't
Jaspar Hume expose him, Bouche? Proof is not always easy, and then he
had to think of her. One has to think of a woman in such a case, Bouche.
Even a dog can see that."

He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "Come, Bouche. You will
keep secret what I show you."

He went to a large box in the corner, unlocked it, and took out a model