floor, deep in thought, in puzzlement, in indecision.
Now I have made up my mind. There is no other way--I must tell you the
truth.

Despite the fact that Bray was Von der Herts; despite the fact that
he killed himself at the discovery--despite this and that, and
everything--Bray did not kill Captain Fraser-Freer!

On last Thursday evening, at a little after seven o'clock, I myself
climbed the stairs, entered the captain's rooms, picked up that knife
from his desk, and stabbed him just above the heart!

What provocation I was under, what stern necessity moved me--all this
you must wait until to-morrow to know. I shall spend another anxious day
preparing my defense, hoping that through some miracle of mercy you may
forgive me--understand that there was nothing else I could do.

Do not judge, dear lady, until you know everything--until all my
evidence is in your lovely hands.

YOURS, IN ALL HUMILITY.

The first few paragraphs of this the sixth and next to the last letter
from the Agony Column man had brought a smile of relief to the face of
the girl who read. She was decidedly glad to learn that her friend no
longer languished back of those gray walls on Victoria Embankment. With
excitement that increased as she went along, she followed Colonel Hughes
as--in the letter--he moved nearer and nearer his denouement, until
finally his finger pointed to Inspector Bray sitting guilty in his
chair. This was an eminently satisfactory solution, and it served the
inspector right for locking up her friend. Then, with the suddenness
of a bomb from a Zeppelin, came, at the end, her strawberry man's
confession of guilt. He was the murderer, after all! He admitted it! She
could scarcely believe her eyes.

Yet there it was, in ink as violet as those eyes, on the note paper that
had become so familiar to her during the thrilling week just past. She
read it a second time, and yet a third. Her amazement gave way to anger;
her cheeks flamed. Still--he had asked her not to judge until all his
evidence was in. This was a reasonable request surely, and she could not
in fairness refuse to grant it.

CHAPTER VIII

So began an anxious day, not only for the girl from Texas but for all
London as well. Her father was bursting with new diplomatic secrets
recently extracted from his bootblack adviser. Later, in Washington, he
was destined to be a marked man because of his grasp of the situation
abroad. No one suspected the bootblack, the