"To Brother Copas, of all people," confessed the Master with a rueful little chuckle. "Yes, I don't wonder that you stare: yet it happened very simply. You remember the day I asked you to send him to me for a talk about the Petition? Well, he found me in distress over this letter, which I had just received, and on an impulse I showed it to him. I really wanted his assurance that the charge was as baseless as it was foul, and that assurance he gave me. So you may with an easy mind put your letter in the fire."
"It would at any rate be a safer course than to give it away," said the Chaplain, frowning.
"A hit—a palpable hit!… I ought to have added that Brother Copas has a notion he can discover the writer, whom he positively asserts to be a woman. So I allowed him to take the thing away with him. I may as well confess," the old man added, "that I live in some dread of his making the discovery. Of course it is horrible to think that St. Hospital harbours anyone capable of such a letter; but to deal adequately with the culprit—especially if she be a woman—will be for the moment yet more horrible."
"Excuse me, Master, if I don't quite follow you," said the Chaplain unsympathetically. "You appear to be exercised rather over the writer than over Brother Bonaday, against whom the charge lies."
"You have hit on the precise word," answered Master Blanchminster, smiling. "Brother Copas assures me—"
"But is Brother Copas an entirely credible witness?"
The Master lifted his eyebrows in astonishment.
"Why, who should know better? He is Brother Bonaday's closest friend. Surely, my dear fellow, I had thought you were aware of that!"
In the face of this simplicity the Chaplain could only grind his teeth upon a helpless inward wrath. It took him some seconds to recover speech.
"On my way here," he said at length, "I made some small inquiries, and find that some days ago Nurse Branscome ceased her attendance on Bonaday, handing over the case to our excellent Nurse Turner. This, of course, may mean little."