hired an automobile below and they drove off. As soon as they
were out of the main street, he thrust his hand into the breast-pocket
of his coat and smoothed out that half-sheet of notepaper upon his knee.

"Violet," he said, "please read that."

She read the few lines instructing the English Bank to hand over Sir
Henry Hunterleys' letters to the bearer. Then she looked up at him with
a puzzled frown.

"I don't understand."

"Did you write that?" he enquired.

She looked at him indignantly.

"What an absurd question!" she exclaimed. "Your correspondence has no
interest for me."

Her denial, so natural, so obviously truthful, was a surprise to him. He
felt a sudden impulse of joy, mingled with shame. Perhaps, after all, he
had been altogether too censorious. Once more he directed her attention
to the sheet of paper. There was a marked change in his voice and
manner.

"Violet," he begged, "please look at it. Accepting without hesitation
your word that you did not write it, doesn't it occur to you that the
body of the letter is a distinct imitation of your handwriting, and the
signature a very clever forgery of mine?"

"It is rather like my handwriting," she admitted, "and as for the
signature, do you mean to say really that that is not yours?"

"Certainly not," he assured her. "The whole thing is a forgery."

"But who in the world should want to get your letters?" she asked
incredulously. "And why should you have them addressed to the bank?"

He folded up the paper then and put it in his pocket.

"Violet," he said earnestly, "for the disagreements which have resulted
in our separation I may myself have been to some extent responsible, but
we have promised one another not to refer to them again and I will not
break our compact. All I can say is that there is much in my life which
you know little of, and for which you do not, therefore, make sufficient
allowance."

"Then you might have treated me," she declared, "with more confidence."

"It was not possible," he reminded her, "so long as you chose to make an
intimate friend of a man whose every interest in life is in direct
antagonism to mine."

"Mr. Draconmeyer?"

"Mr. Draconmeyer," he assented.

She smiled contemptuously.

"You misunderstand Mr. Draconmeyer completely," she insisted. "He is
your well-wisher and he is more than half an Englishman. It was he who
started the league between English and German commercial men for the
propagation of peac