loves so devotedly as you've loved
Ethelwynn. But be brave, bear up, and face the situation like a man."

"I am facing it," I said resolutely. "I will face it by refusing to
believe that she killed him. The letters are plain enough. She was
engaged secretly to old Courtenay, who threw her over in favour of her
sister. But is there anything so very extraordinary in that? One hears
of such things very often."

"But the final letter?"

"It bears evidence of being written in the first moments of wild anger
on realising that she had been abandoned in favour of Mary. Probably
she has by this time quite forgotten the words she wrote. And in any
case the fact of her living beneath the same roof, supervising the
household, and attending to the sick man during Mary's absence,
entirely negatives any idea of revenge."

Jevons smiled dubiously, and I myself knew that my argument was not
altogether logical.

"Well?" I continued. "And is not that your opinion?"

"No. It is not," he replied, bluntly.

"Then what is to be done?" I asked, after a pause.

"The matter rests entirely with you, Ralph," he replied. "I know what
I should do in a similar case."

"What would you do? Advise me," I urged eagerly.

"I should take the whole of the correspondence, just as it is, place
it in the grate there, and burn it," he said.

I was not prepared for such a suggestion. A similar idea had occurred
to me, but I feared to suggest to him such a mode of defeating the
ends of justice.

"But if I do that will you give me a vow of secrecy?" I asked,
quickly. "Recollect that such a step is a serious offence against the
law."

"When I pass out of this room I shall have no further recollection of
ever having seen any letters," he answered, again giving me his hand.
"In this matter my desire is only to help you. If, as you believe,
Ethelwynn is innocent, then no harm can be done in destroying the
letters, whereas if she is actually the assassin she must, sooner or
later, betray her guilt. A woman may be clever, but she can never
successfully cover the crime of murder."

"Then you are willing that I, as finder of those letters, shall burn
them? And further, that no word shall pass regarding this discovery?"

"Most willing," he replied. "Come," he added, commencing to gather
them together. "Let us lose no time, or perhaps the constable on duty
below or one of the plain-clothes men may come prying in here."

Then at his direction and with hi