"Give it me—it is mine!"
"No! but you shall hear what it says. Listen:—
"'I could have borne with resignation the miserable part you have imposed upon me. After luring me from my home with dazzling offers, after promising me a life of luxury and splendid ease, you rudely, cruelly dispelled the illusion, and made it plain to me that I had shared the lot of a pauper. All this I could have borne—poverty, however distasteful, but not the infamy, the degradation, of being the partner and associate of your evil deeds. Sooner than fall so low I prefer to leave you for ever. Do not seek for me. I have done with you. All is at an end between us!'"
CHAPTER III.
THE MOUSETRAP.
"Well," said the judge, when he had finished reading, "you see what your wife thinks of you. What do you say now?"
"There is not a word of truth in that letter. It is a tissue of misstatements from beginning to end. You must place no reliance upon it."
"There you must allow me to differ from you. This letter is, in my belief, perfectly genuine. It supplies a most important link in the chain of evidence, and I shall give it the weight it deserves. But enough—will you still deny your guilt?"