any such
letter, and if you had not declared so positively that I was in that
hotel on that especial day, I should be tempted to deny that, too, for I
have no recollection of going there last month."

"Not for the purpose of rearranging a veil that had been blown off?"

"Oh!" she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who
is tripped up in an evasion.

I began to think her innocent and lost some of the gloom which had been
oppressing me.

"You remember now," said I.

"Oh, yes, I remember that."

Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped
there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were
innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so
feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former
hypothesis, I again took her hand and said:

"I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness
of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery
as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on
that unfortunate morning." And making her another low bow, I was about
to take my departure when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.

"What man?" she whispered, and in a lower tone still, "What woman?"

I turned and looked at her. "Great heaven!" thought I, "can such a face
hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in
comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs.
Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew
not what to think.

"You do not mean yourself?" she continued as she met my look of
distress.

"No," I returned; "happily for me, my welfare is not bound up in the
honor of any woman," and leaving that shaft to work its way into her
heart if that heart was vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and
less decided than when I entered.

For her manner had been absolutely that of a woman surprised by
insinuations she was too innocent to rate at their real importance; and
yet if she did not take away that letter who did? Mrs. Couldock?
Impossible. Miss Dawes? The thought was untenable even for an instant. I
waited in great depression of spirits for the call which I knew Taylor
would not fail to make me that evening.

When he came I saw what the result of my revelations was likely to be as
plainly as I see it now. He had conversed frankly with Mrs. Couldock and
with Miss Dawes and was perfectly