"I understand. You have been put on your honor not to tell?"
"Yes, Mrs. Tellingham. It is not my secret."
"But there is a letter to be recovered?"
"Ye-es."
"Is this it?" asked Mrs. Tellingham, suddenly thrusting under Ruth's eye a very much soiled and crumpled envelope. And it had been unsealed, Ruth could see. The superscription was to "Mademoiselle Picolet."
"It—it looks like it," Ruth whispered. "But it was sealed when I had it."
"I do not doubt it," said Mrs. Tellingham, with a shake of her head. "But the letter was given to me first, and then the envelope. The—the person who claims to have found it when you dropped it, declared it to be open then."
"Oh, I do not think so!" cried Ruth.
"Well. Enough that I know its contents. You do not?"
"Indeed, no, Mrs. Tellingham. I may have done wrong to agree to deliver the letter. But I—I was so sorry for her——"