d. 'You say the letter is gone,' he
suggested, after a moment.

"'Yes,' I returned.

"He shook his head. 'Nobody went into that room or came out of it,' he
went on, 'whom you would have wished me to follow. I should have
thought myself losing time if I had taken one step after any one of
them.'

"'But who did go into that room?' I urged, impatient at his
perplexity.

"'Only three persons this morning,' he returned. 'You know them all.'
And he mentioned first Mrs. Couldock."

Taylor, who was lending me the superficial attention of a preoccupied
man, smiled frankly at the utterance of this name. "Of course, she had
nothing to do with such a debasing piece of business," he observed.

"Of course not," I repeated. "Nor does it seem likely that Miss Dawes
could have been concerned in it. Yet my detective told me that she was
the next person who went into the parlor."

"I do not know Miss Dawes so well," remarked Taylor, carelessly.

"But I do," said I; "and I would as soon suspect my sister of a
dishonorable act as this noble, self-sacrificing woman."

"The third person?" suggested Taylor.

I got up and crossed the floor. When my back was to him, I said,
quietly--"was Mrs. Walworth."

The silence that followed was very painful. I did not care to break
it, and he, doubtless, found himself unable to do so. It must have
been five minutes before either of us spoke; then he suddenly cried:

"Where is that detective, as you call him? I want to see him."

"Let me see him for you," said I. "I should hardly wish Sudley,
discreet as I consider him, to know you had any interest in this
affair."

Taylor rose and came to where I stood.

"You believe," said he, "that she, the woman I am about to marry, is
the one who wrote you that infamous letter?"

I faced him quite frankly. "I do not feel ready to acknowledge that,"
I replied. "One of those three women took my letter out from the
Bible, where I placed it; which of them wrote the lines that provoked
it I do not dare conjecture. You say it was not Mrs. Couldock, I say
it was not Miss Dawes, but--"

He broke in upon me impetuously.

"Have you the letter?" he asked.

I had, and showed it to him.

"It is not Helen's handwriting," he said.

"Nor is it that of Mrs. Couldock or Miss Dawes."

He looked at me for a moment in a wild sort of way.

"You think she got some one to write it for her?" he cried. "Helen! my
Helen! But it is not so; it cannot be so. Why, Hunt