"If he is innocent," said Dr. Daincourt, "then Miss Rutland must also be innocent."
"Undoubtedly," I said, with a cheerful smile, which did much to reassure the worthy doctor.
"Have you opened the two sealed letters," asked Dr. Daincourt, "which I brought from Mrs. Rutland's house?"
"No," I replied. "I have devoted myself only to the first of the opened letters found in Miss Rutland's desk. I shall proceed immediately with the second, and then I shall feel myself warranted in opening and reading the letters which arrived for Miss Rutland during her illness. By-the-way, doctor, I have had a singular dream, and upon your entrance I was endeavoring to track it. It was a dream of ladies' hands, covered with rings."
"Any bodies attached to the hands?" inquired Dr. Daincourt, jocosely.
"No; simply hands. They seemed to pass before my vision, and to rise up in unexpected places pretty, shapely hands. But it was not so much the hands that struck me as being singular as the fact that they were covered with rings of one particular kind."
"What kind?"
"I must have seen thousands of rings upon the shapely fingers, and there was not one that was not set with diamonds and turquoises."
A light came into Dr. Daincourt's face.
"And you mean to tell me that you can't discover the connection?"