"What if I never marry you?"
"But you will."
"Never while you hold that paper."
"Ah, I see it was for that you brought me here. I have been a fool!"
"Exactly."
The man was looking out on the lake as he spoke, and did not see the flash of those black eyes, or the rage that curved those lips till the teeth gleamed menacingly through.
"A miserable fool," he went on, "or you would have known that a man who had the chance of a girl like Ruth Jessup would never think of you."
"Ah, it is Ruth Jessup, then?"
"Yes, it is Ruth Jessup—the only girl I ever cared a straw for. The letter you gave me gets her with the rest. That is the grandest part of my bargain. She cannot help herself."
"But I can help her and punish you. The letter you want, but shall never have—William Jessup's last letter, written when his head was clear and his memory good, taking back the lines written in his fever—a letter charging you with the murder I saw done with my own eyes—this letter, and all that I know, shall be in Sir Noel's hands before he goes to bed to-night."