, and
he drew out his handkerchief and mopped his face.

"It's certainly very curious, very curious indeed," he said with all the
calmness he could muster. "But it doesn't tell us much."

"It wasn't intended to tell anything," said Mrs. Owen. "Whoever wrote
that letter, as I told you, was troubled about Sylvia. I reckon it was a
man; and I guess it's fair to assume that he felt under obligations, but
hadn't the nerve to face 'em as obligations. Is that the way it strikes
you?"

[Illustration: WHOEVER WROTE THAT LETTER WAS TROUBLED ABOUT SYLVIA]

"That seems clear enough," he replied lamely. He made a pretense of
rereading the letter, but only detached phrases penetrated to his
consciousness. His imagination was in rebellion against the curbing to
which he strove to subject it. When he had borne his answer back to
Fitch's office and been discharged with the generous payment of one
hundred dollars for his services as messenger, just what had been the
further history of the transaction? He had so far controlled his
agitation that he was able to continue discussing the letter formally
with the kind old woman who had placed the clue in his hands. He was
little experienced in the difficult art of conversing with half a mind,
and a direct question from Mrs. Owen roused him to the necessity of
heeding what she was saying. He had resolved, however, that he would not
tell her of his own connection with the message that lay on the table
before them. He needed time in which to consider; he must not add a
pebble's weight to an avalanche that might go crashing down upon the
innocent. His training had made him wary of circumstantial evidence;
after all it was possible that this was not the letter he had carried to
Professor Kelton. It would be very like Mrs. Owen, if she saw that
anything could be gained by such a course, to go direct to Fitch and
demand to know the source of the offer that had passed through his hands
so mysteriously; but Fitch had not known the contents of the letter, or
he had said as much to Harwood. There was also the consideration, and
not the lightest, that Dan was bound in honor to maintain the secrecy
Fitch had imposed upon him. The lawyer had confided the errand to him in
the belief that he would accept the mission in the spirit in which it
was entrusted to him, and his part in the transaction was a matter
between himself and Fitch and did not concern Mrs. Owen in any way
whatever. No possible benefit co