The drawing-room of Mrs. Admaston's house in St. James's was thought by many people to be one of the most delightful rooms in town.

The Morris and Æsthetic conventions were entirely ignored in it. There were no soft greys or greens, no patterns of pomegranates, no brown and pleasing sombreness. The room expressed Peggy herself, and was designed entirely by her.

It was large, panelled entirely in white with sparse gilding, and the ceiling was white also, though slightly different in tone. The very few pictures which hung upon the walls were all of the gay Watteau school, and there were some fans painted on silk and framed by Charles Conder.

The furniture was not obtrusive. It was in the light style of the Second Empire, fragile and delicate in appearance, but strong and comfortable enough in experience.

The room was essentially a summer room, and yet one could see that even in winter time it would strike a note of warmth, hospitality, and comfort.

For, with great wisdom, Peggy had made concessions. While the drawing-room still preserved its gay French air, there was, nevertheless, a huge open hearth on which, in winter, logs and coal glowed redly. Now, it was filled with great bunches of the simple pink foxglove.

Standing out from the fireplace, at right angles to the wall, was a large sofa of blue linen; and there was also a big writing-table with a pleasant furniture of chased silver upon it.

This room in the luxurious house was called the "drawing-room," but it was not really that. It was, in fact, Mrs. Admaston's own particular room—she hated the word boudoir. The big reception-rooms had no such intimate and pleasant aspect—splendid as they were—as this.

The flowers bloomed on the hearth, the long dull-green curtains had not yet veiled the warm outside evening, when a footman entered and flung open the two big doors which led into this delightful place.

The man stood waiting with one arm stretched out upon one leaf of the door.

Mrs. Admaston and Lady Attwill entered, and Pauline followed them.

"Bring some tea at once," Pauline said in a low voice to the footman.

Then she turned to Peggy. "Madame," she said in a voice full of pain, "do compose yourself. You will be very ill if you go on like this."

Peggy's face was dangerously flushed. Her eyes glittered, her hands clasped and unclasped themselves.

"That letter!" she cried. "That fiendish letter! Who could have sent it? What devil planned that trap?"

Lady Attwill shrugged her shoulders. "Anonymous—take no notice," she said.

Peggy turned on her like a whirlwind. "Don't be absurd, Alice!" she cried. "It was sent before we left London. Who knew we should go to Paris? Who knew that we should stay at the Tuileries?"

Pauline was hovering round her mistress with a face that was all anxiety, with hands that trembled to touch and soothe. "Remember, madame," she said, "it was sent to your aunt. Very funny that! She has never liked you, that grim old lady!"

"Why did she dislike me?" Peggy said petulantly.

"Madame, you were gay, happy—like sunbeams. Your old aunt lived in the shadows. She is a dour old maid."

"I don't see what she has to do with it," Peggy answered. "The letter was written by some one who knew that we were going to stay in Paris, and even where we were going to stay."

Lady Attwill went up to the fireplace and sank down upon the sofa of blue linen.

In her smart afternoon costume of grey silk, and a large straw hat upon which the flowers were amethyst and purple, she made a perfect colour-harmony as she sat.

"Why was it sent to her?" Lady Attwill asked.

Peggy sighed. "I don't know, except that she was the one to poison George's mind. Without her he would probably have ignored it. But who was it who knew that we should be in Paris that night? No one imagines that I knew or—Pauline. Then there's Dicky—that's absurd."

Peggy's face seemed to have grown older. The terrible ordeal that she had undergone had left vivid traces upon it. It was not a frightened face—it was the face of one who had been agonised, but it was also a face of great perplexity.

Pauline interposed. "Madame," she said, "if you did not know that you would be staying at Paris that night, the writer of that letter must be some one who did know, and who planned this trick to compromise you. There are only two who could have known. Madame—I do not like...."

In the maid's voice the old, harsh Breton determination had flashed out. She turned towards Lady Attwill, and her whole voice and bearing were a challenge.

Her head was pushed a little forward, moving from side to side like a snake about to strike; unconsciously her arms were set akimbo.

Lady Attwill looked languidly at the angry woman. "You need have no delicacy, Pauline," she said. "Ca fait rien, expliquez-vous. Tiens! What you want to say is that the letter was written by Mr. Collingwood or by myself—or by somebody or other procured by us to do it. C'est votre idÉe, n'est-ce pas?"

The woman, in her way—in her languid way—was defiant as the old Breton bonne herself.

Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude.

"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't you know—it was Colling who saw that it was not registered."

"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly.

"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?"

Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion.

"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest——"

Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. "It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not think how else it could have been done."

She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think it could have been Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?"

Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost judicial pose.

She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if Admaston gets his divorce."

"I beg miladi's pardon," Pauline broke in, "but I do not think that is so."

"C'est bien possible," Lady Attwill replied to the maid. And then, looking at Peggy, "I am sure I can't imagine Mr. Collingwood doing such a thing. I am the last person to make mischief."

She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. "Come along, Peggy," she said; "you must get your things off—you've had such a horrible day."

Peggy looked at her wildly. She hardly seemed to hear what she was saying.

"No—no—let me think—I must think!" she cried, and there was a rising note of hysteria in her voice.

"Well," Lady Attwill said calmly, "I must get out of my things, at anyrate." Then she spoke with something which sounded like affection in her voice.

"Peggy," she said, "you really must lie down and rest—I shall be down in a few minutes."

With a bright smile she took her parasol and left the room.

Then Peggy let herself go.

"Oh! How cruel it is!" she cried, raging up and down the drawing-room. "They have taken all the joy out of my life! I feel as if they had burnt the damning letter in scarlet upon my breast—branded by law, divorce-court law! Oh, the ignominy, the shame of it all—the shame! It is barbarous! To hold a woman up and torture her before a pruriently minded crowd whether she is guilty or not! Am I guilty because I can't prove that I am innocent?"

The old maid ran up to Peggy and caught her firmly by the arms, pressing her down into a chair.

"Rest! rest!" she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mignon, you will break my heart if you go on like this. You are innocent; I stake my soul on that. Wait—wait till to-morrow when I am witness. I will tell them!"

Peggy's arms went round the old maid's neck and she drew the gnarled face to hers. "Pauline," she said, "dear Pauline! They will torture you as they did me. It is useless. Sir Robert Fyffe will make you say just what he wants. It is not justice that triumphs in the end—it is intellect that damns. Pauline, do you think that Mr. Collingwood knew that we should be in Paris that night, and that he wrote the letter?"

Pauline kissed her. "I think, madame," she said, "that M. Collingwood knew that we should be in Paris. But I am certain he did not write that letter. M. Collingwood might have done a very foolish thing, thinking that you loved him—but he is a gentleman."

"But if he did not write it—then you think that Lady Attwill?..."

"Comme vous voulez? If it is not M. Collingwood, madame, it must be Lady Attwill."

"But why should she have done such a fiendish thing?"

"She has never forgiven you for marrying Mr. Admaston. Did I not tell you, madame? Did I not say that to you in Paris?"

Peggy nodded. "Yes, Pauline," she replied; "but I can't believe you. She has seen my misery. No, Pauline, it is impossible!"

"Madame, it is not impossible. She can only conquer by your misery."

Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "I must find out who wrote that letter."

"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her hands; "but how will you do it?"

"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband—as you know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter."

The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge."

"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace."

The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains which half veiled the view beyond.

"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that old Sheraton chair on the terrace."

"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked.

"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason."

"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied.

"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve.

It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she cried. "Rest!"

"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. I must see him. Let him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes."

She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea.

"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here."

The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it.

At the far end of the drawing-room—not the end where the curtained windows led out on to the terrace lounge—there was a tall screen of carved teakwood from Benares. Behind it upon a little table stood a telephone. The Admastons—husband and wife—had always made a great point of using the telephone. Peggy herself, with her impulsive moods, found it most convenient, and insisted upon having one in any room that she habitually used.

Pauline, her face wrinkled in thought, strolled mechanically to this corner of the room and gazed down upon the glittering little machine of ebony and silver with a frown of dislike. She was thinking of Collingwood and his message, and a dull resentment glowed in her brain at these mechanical facilities of life.

There were no telephones in Pont-Aven when she was a girl in the ancient Breton town, and these things seemed to her part and parcel of the hot, feverish, and hurried life in which her beloved mistress was suffering so greatly.

The old bonne's face, kindly and sweet enough when it wore its ordinary expression, was now mocking and malevolent as she stared at the table. Suddenly she stiffened, raised her head, and listened intently.

She had heard the door of the drawing-room open and close quietly, and there came a rustle of silk skirts.

Lady Attwill had glided quietly into the room and stepped up to the big writing-table at which Peggy conducted most of her correspondence.

The maid stepped out from behind the screen, her eyes shining curiously. "Can I do anything for madame?" she asked. "Miladi a oubliÉ quelque chose, n'est-ce pas?"

The tall, slim woman seemed strangely confused. Her face was a little flushed, her glance at Pauline distinctly uneasy.

She made an exclamation in French, paused to think, and then answered Pauline in English.

"I thought I left my bag down here," she said lamely.

Without troubling to disguise the suspicion and hostility in her voice, and with a slightly sneering note of triumph in it, as if she was pleased at Alice Attwill's confusion, Pauline made a little mocking bow.

"Madame had her bag in her hand when she went upstairs. But I will ring and ask." She went towards the nearest bell-push.

"No! no!" Lady Attwill answered; "please don't trouble. I must be mistaken."

Without a backward glance she almost hurried from the room.

Pauline's face was now extraordinarily watchful and alert. All the peasant cunning flashed out upon it. Any one who has seen the wives and daughters of the small Breton farmers selling a cow or a pony on market-day in some old-world town has seen this cautious, watchful look. One can see it even on the face and in the eyes of a pointer when birds are near: it is of the soil, primeval, part of the eternal hidden warfare of life.

"Yes, perhaps madame is mistaken," the woman said to herself with an ugly grin.

She walked up to the writing-table and looked down upon it thoughtfully.

Suddenly something seemed to strike her and she stretched out her hand to open the great blotter of Nile-green leather, bordered with silver, when the telephone bell rang sharply out into the drawing-room.

She hurried to the telephone. "Who is it?" she said. "What? Yes, this is Admaston House—yes. She is in. Who is it? Yes, sir."

Still holding the receiver in her hand, the woman staggered back from the mouthpiece. She began to tremble violently. Her face became crimson with excitement.

"Oh, sir! she is...."

And now Pauline burst out crying. The tears ran down her cheeks, her old mouth trembled, she seemed upon the point of a breakdown.

"Oh, sir!" she cried again, "she has gone out upon the terrace, and is resting. Monsieur, I can hardly speak to you! Your wife is nearly mad, monsieur! Monsieur, she is innocent—on my soul!"

Her face became intensely eager. "Yes," she sobbed, "come. Yes, by the gate leading from the Park. You have the key. No. Yes, come; I will promise."

With hands that shook terribly, Pauline replaced the receiver on the bracket and came round from behind the Indian screen, walking towards the door. She had not got within three paces of it when it was flung open and the footman announced "Mr. Collingwood."

Roderick Collingwood entered, spruce, dÉbonnaire as ever, but showing in his face traces of the ordeal he was passing through.

"Hullo, Pauline; where is madame?" he said.

"Madame is resting," the maid said, with distinct hostility.

"Out upon the terrace?" he answered, moving towards the windows.

Pauline made a swift movement and placed herself between him and the curtains.

"No; I think she is in her room, monsieur. Please wait here."

Collingwood looked at Pauline in some surprise. He seemed hurt. "What is the matter, Pauline?" he said.

"Nothing is the matter, sir. Would you like to see the news?"

She handed him the evening paper from the writing-table. "I will tell madame," she said, and hurried from the room—well knowing that there was another door from the hall by which the terrace could be reached.

Collingwood picked up the paper, opened it, and eagerly scanned the report of the day's proceedings. Then he flung it down with an oath just as a footman entered the room. "Lord Ellerdine wishes to speak to you, sir," said the footman.

"Is he here?" Collingwood replied.

"Yes, sir."

"Show him up at once."

In a moment or two more Lord Ellerdine, looking flurried and hot, entered the drawing-room.

His hat was in his hand, and he was wearing a light grey overcoat.

"My dear Dicky," Collingwood said, "what on earth brings you here?"

Collingwood had risen and strolled over to the big settee of blue linen. He sat down upon it calmly.

"I wanted to ask you something," Lord Ellerdine said in a rather unsteady voice; "so I went round to your solicitors' office, and they told me that I should find you here."

"Well, what is it?" Collingwood asked imperturbably.

"I say, Colling—do you write with your left hand?"

The other made a movement of impatience. "My dear Dicky," he said irritably, "what the devil?..."

"But do you?" Ellerdine insisted.

"Of course I don't," Collingwood answered shortly.

"I thought as much," said Lord Ellerdine, with a sigh of relief.

"You did, did you?" Collingwood replied, with a slight smile. "What is the game, Dicky?"

"It's not a game, Colling; it's dead serious," said the ex-diplomatist.

"Why, Dicky, what's up?"

"You remember some time ago when some silly ass forged my name on a cheque?" Lord Ellerdine asked, still flurried and ill at ease.

"Well?"

"Well, I got to know a handwriting expert—an American—a devilish smart fellow. When we left the court just now, and Peggy was thinking pretty rotten things about you, I thought I would go and have a word with him."

Collingwood's languid manner entirely disappeared. He bent forward with a keen, searching look at his friend. "You found him?" he asked.

Ellerdine nodded.

"Well, what does he say?"

"I showed him the photos of the letters," Lord Ellerdine continued, "and then the originals, and he says that they are written by some one who writes easily and fluently with his left hand."

"Left hand! Great Scott! Is he sure?"

"As sure as an American expert can be of anything," the peer returned.

"That's sure enough," Collingwood replied, shrugging his shoulders and rising up from the sofa.

He began to walk up and down the room. "That clears me, at anyrate," he said. "But what the devil can it all mean, Ellerdine?"

Lord Ellerdine had been looking at his friend, pathetically waiting for a word of praise. Now he ventured upon a little fishing remark:

"Mighty good thing I thought of that American chap—don't you think so, Colling?"

Collingwood hardly seemed to hear him. His head was bent forward and he was deep in thought.

"Yes, Dicky, yes. Left hand, eh?"

"Yes," Lord Ellerdine answered, with a plaintive note in his voice. "I think, Colling, I've handled this business with some skill—what?"

"Left hand," the other repeated, in a brown study.

"With some skill, Colling—what? Skill—what?" Lord Ellerdine bleated.

Collingwood looked up at this note in the other's voice. He suddenly realised that the poor gentleman was pining for praise, and began to administer it in the heartiest possible fashion.

He smacked him on the shoulder and his voice became absolutely jovial. "Skill!" he said. "My dear Dicky, it's splendid! Really, you missed your vocation. Diplomacy! Never! You're a detective, Dicky! A sleuth-hound! A regular Sherlock Holmes, don't you know!"

Lord Ellerdine was the happiest man in the three kingdoms at that moment. His little mouth twitched with pleasure. His face beamed like the rising sun. "I say, Colling, do you think so—do you really think so, Colling?"

"Think so!" Collingwood answered, laughing. "I'm sure of it, old chap"; and then, with a sudden, swift transition of manner, "Dicky, look here—have you told Admaston?"

"Not yet," Lord Ellerdine replied. "George Admaston is hard hit, devilish hard hit. He doesn't believe Peggy's guilty—he'd chuck the case if it wasn't for Fyffe."

"Chuck the case!" Collingwood said eagerly.

"I honestly believe he would," Lord Ellerdine answered. "It's the letter which sticks with Fyffe, and I don't understand it—we come against the beastly thing all the time."

Collingwood nodded. "Yes," he said; "that letter's hell."

He suddenly raised his head. "Look here, Dicky," he said, "I think I hear Peggy coming; so off you go, please. Get your American expert to dine with us to-night at your place, at eight o'clock. Run along."

Ellerdine went to the door. "All right, old chap," he said; "that is what I'll do. Eight o'clock. I'm so glad it wasn't you, old chap—such a dirty business!"

He went out of the room, not noticing that he had left his hat and gloves upon the writing-table.

A moment afterwards Peggy entered, pulling aside the curtains of the terrace window. She started violently when she saw Collingwood. "You here!" she said, and there was an ugly note of apprehension and even of anger in her voice. "You——"

Collingwood went up to her. "Peggy!" he said.

"Wasn't that Dicky I heard?"

"Yes."

Collingwood had hardly said it, and the two were looking at each other strangely enough, when the door leading into the hall opened and Lord Ellerdine came back. "Forgot my hat, old chap," he said, going up to the table. Then he saw Peggy.

"Peggy!" he cried, going up to her and taking one of her hands in both of his. "Buck up, little woman! It'll be all right—we'll pull you through!"

Then he began to hesitate and stammer, while his cheeks flushed and he showed every possible sign of embarrassment.

"Yes," he continued, "we'll pull you through. Won't we, Colling?"

He hesitated, at a loss for words; and then his eye fell upon the table. "Ah!" he said. "My hat—yes—good-bye. Buck up, little woman! And, Colling, don't forget eight o'clock to-night."

Red and shy as a schoolgirl, Lord Ellerdine somehow got himself out of the room.

"Poor, dear old Dicky!" Peggy said with a sigh, more to herself than to her companion; and then, turning, "Colling, why have you come?"

Collingwood held out both his hands. "Peggy—dear little Peggy!" he said. "My heart bleeds for you!"

Peggy stepped back. "Don't let's talk about that," she said swiftly.

"But, Peggy——"

"It is rather late," the girl returned in the same cold voice; "the time for sympathy is long past. Why did you ask to see me?"

There was a deep note of passion in Collingwood's voice as he answered. "I could not let you think what I could see you were thinking," he said.

Peggy did not appear moved in any way. "You promised," she said, "neither to come nor to ask to see me."

"I could not stay away any longer," he answered; and if ever a man had tears in his voice, Collingwood had then.

"Have you come to tell me that the man Stevens is telling a lie, and that our trip to Paris was only accident?"

"No," the man replied. "Peggy dear, can you ever——"

"Colling! Colling! why did you do it?" she wailed.

His body went back suddenly as if he had received an actual blow in the chest.

"Oh, Peggy—for God's sake!..."

"You have thought neither of God nor me," she answered bitterly.

"Of you," he cried—"always of you, Peggy!"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "Thought of me would have made you think of all I have had to suffer. Did you think of me when you planned to go to Paris? When did you ever think of me—my being—my life—my soul? What excuse can you offer?"

His arms fell to his side, his face was pale and passionate. "Only my love," he answered—"my fierce, burning love. The mad desire to have you for my own. I have thought of nothing else since I met you."

She bent forward and threw out her arm. The little ivory-white hand was palm upwards, and it shook in dreadful accusation.

"Thought of me?" she cried. "Was it thought of me that drove me under the lash of that man's scourge to-day? Was it thought of me that placed me like a criminal in that court to-day? How could you have thought of me and not foreseen the shame, the misery, and the torture to which I have been subjected? Where was your love for me when you were conscious of the mass of evidence these creatures were piling up against me? Did your love of me foresee newsboys rushing about the streets with placards blazing out like letters of fire, 'Mrs. Admaston on the Rack'? Rack, Colling!"

He shook his head with a terrible gesture of sadness.

"No. I did not foresee it," he said, "because you made me believe that you were in earnest—that you loved me. If you had loved me you wouldn't have cared."

"I liked you, Colling, I liked you," she said; and now all the fire had gone from her voice.

"Liked me! Was it mere liking that made you take all those risks? You knew my intention. I told you again and again I wanted him to divorce you."

"I never realised——" the girl said hopelessly.

His voice as he answered her was very soft and tender.

"No, dear; you played with me. I am not blaming you, but don't be too harsh in judging me. I know the torture you are suffering now, Peggy, and I would give my right hand to save you from it. But don't you ever think of the torture you have given me? All the pain, the longing of months and months—is it all to be forgotten? Oh, I know it is no excuse to the others; but you, dear, will know in your heart that I did it because I loved you, thinking to make you happy."

"I think I understand, Colling," Peggy said; "but the letter——"

Collingwood appeared dazed. "The letter!" he murmured.

"Oh, Colling," she answered, "I'll forgive you anything you have done because you loved me; but the letter—you will own up, Colling?"

"Own up?"

"Yes, dear," Peggy said; "my life depends on it. You are a man. You can begin again. Don't see me go under. There is no hope for a woman. Don't stand there and watch me struggle while there is a chance to save me. I'll forgive everything—yes, everything—but the letter."

Collingwood seemed genuinely surprised. His face, which at first appeared perplexed, now showed nothing but astonishment as he realised what she meant. "Peggy—little Peggy," he said, "surely you don't judge me as harshly as that, do you? No, dear; I have done much that I am sorry for—that I shall never be able to forgive myself for as long as I live, but not that. The letter is the work of some one else. I never wrote it."

"Oh, Colling," she replied, "I am so glad—so very glad! But the letter—the letter is everything after all. It means everything to me. Then, if you didn't write it—there is only one other person who could possibly have done so."

"Exactly," Collingwood answered. "Lady Attwill and I were the only two people who knew anything about the Paris trip, who could know anything about it. But the question is, how on earth are we going to prove that she wrote that letter? I do not see any possible way in which it can be done, and I am sure you don't."

"If we prove it," Peggy answered, "do you think it will satisfy George, Colling?"

"Satisfy?" Collingwood replied, seating himself on the edge of the writing-table. "I should think so—he is satisfied already. But still, you know, Peggy, the letter sticks. Why, even Lady Attwill knew that there was nothing between us. It was only the appearance of guilt which she schemed for, and that letter gives it."

"And if we can't prove it, and the worst happens, she hopes to marry George," Peggy said despairingly.

The bitterness of the thought was terrible. It seemed as she sat there that such treachery and black-heartedness were almost incredible. Could the woman who had been her constant friend, who had stayed with her for months at a time, on whom she had lavished innumerable favours, be so base and despicable of soul as this?

Collingwood saw what was passing in her mind, and nodded.

"That is her game without a doubt, Peggy," he said earnestly.

"Then why has she stood by me all these months? Why? Why? That is what I want to know," Peggy said.

Collingwood smiled bitterly. "Why, don't you see?" he said. "Because her devotion to you will touch George, who still loves you."

Peggy's face changed in a moment. "Oh, Colling!" she said, and her voice was inexpressibly pathetic—"oh, Colling, do you think George does love me still?"

"I know he does, and that you love him. My dear, if I could have won you I should not have stayed away all these months; but I owed you that—and I tried to play the game."

"Colling," she answered, in a burst of warmth and kindliness, "I never liked you so much as I do now, Colling. I think it is because I feel I can lean upon you and trust you——"

"Poor little Butterfly!" he answered; and there were tears in the eyes of this hardened man of fashion, tears which sprang to his eyes in spite of himself and showed the deep tenderness beneath.

"But, Colling," Peggy went on anxiously, "have we any chance at all of proving it against her? She has been awfully clever about it all, hasn't she?"

Collingwood shook his head rather hopelessly. "I doubt if we have any chance at all," he said. "But there is just one thing—I have just remembered it. I have a sort of clue, and that is one which Dicky has just given me when he was here a few minutes ago."

"Oh! Dicky!" Peggy said, with a wan little smile.

"Well," Collingwood resumed, "of course no one would call Dicky intellectual and that, but I really think there is something in what he said this time. I'll tell you. He has consulted an American handwriting expert about the letters, and he says that they are the work of some one who can write with the left hand. I know that I can't write with my left hand. But what about Alice?"

"I don't know," Peggy answered slowly; "I have never heard of her doing so."

"Or using it more than the ordinary?" Collingwood continued.

"Yes—stay," Peggy replied eagerly. "She is ever so good with it at billiards."

Collingwood laughed.

"Oh, don't laugh, Colling!" she continued—"please don't laugh at me—but I remember she did tell me—yes—that she broke her right arm sleighing when she was a girl, and that she is almost ambidextrous. It has only just come back to me. She told me many years ago."

Collingwood jumped up from the table alert and excited.

"That is something—by Jove! it is," he cried. "Tell me, where is she?"

"She has only gone upstairs for a moment," Peggy said. "I am expecting her down every moment."

"By the way, Peggy," Collingwood asked, "where does she write her letters and things when she is here with you?"

"She always writes there," Peggy answered, pointing to the table, "where you have been sitting."

"Look here," Collingwood said decisively, "when she comes, leave her alone with me. I'll do what I can. I'll tackle her. You had better not be here at all."

"But, Colling, can't I help?" Peggy asked. "I think I might be of use, though of course it will be dreadfully unpleasant. But, for my own sake, I must stick at nothing now."

"No, Peggy," he replied firmly. "I feel I can manage this much better myself. Look here—you go out upon the terrace again. I will just come with you and settle you in your chair—how tired you look!—and then a mauvais quart d'heure for Alice, if she ever had one in her life."

"But it may not be true after all," Peggy said, as they walked together towards the long windows.

He shook his head at that. "It must be true," he said; "no one else could have done it; and what you have just told me, and what Dicky said, make it conclusive to my mind."

They passed behind the curtains together, and there was the sound of a chair being moved over the tessellated floor.