he said, as if that was all the
information he meant to impart.

Webster urged him, with eyes and voice:

"Well?"

"And on the back of it is some of Mildred Brace's handwriting."

The old man examined the piece of paper with every show of absorption.
He could hear Webster's hurried breathing, and the gulp when he
swallowed the lump in his throat.

The scene had got hold of Wilton also. Leaning forward in his chair,
his lips half-parted, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand
mechanically fubbing out his cigar, so that a little stream of fire
trickled to the floor, he gazed unwinking at the envelope flap.

Webster went a step nearer to Hastings, and stood, passing his hand
across the top of his head and staring again out of his half-closed
eyes, as if the light had hurt them.

"And," the old man said, regarding Webster keenly but keeping any hint
of accusation out of his voice, "I found it last night in the
fireplace, behind the screen, in your room upstairs."

He paused, looking toward the door, his attention caught by a noise in
the hall.

Webster laughed, on the high, derisive note. He was noticeably pale.

"Come, man!" Judge Wilton said, harsh and imperious. "Can't you see the
boy's suffering? What's written on it?"

"What difference does it make--the writing?" Webster objected, with a
movement of his shoulders that looked like a great effort to pull
himself together. "If there's any at all, it's faked. Faked! That's what
it is. People don't write on the inside of envelope flaps."

His face did not express the assurance he tried to put into his voice.
He went back to the piano and leaned on it, his posture such that it
might have indicated a nonchalant ease or, equally well, might have
betrayed his desperate need of support.

"This letter incident can't be waved away," Hastings, without handing
over the scrap of envelope, proceeded in even, measured tones--using his
sentences as if they were hammers with which he assailed the young
lawyer's remnants of self-control. "You're not trifling with a jury, Mr.
Webster. I believe I know as much about the value of facts, this kind of
facts, as you do. Consider what you're up against. You----"

Webster put up a hand in protest, the fingers so unsteady that they
dropped the cigarette which he had been on the point of lighting.

"Just a moment!" the old man commanded him. "This Mildred Brace claimed
she had suffered injury at your hands. You fired her out o