“That’s very sporting of you,” declared Anthony. “But somehow I don’t think that’s the true explanation—Miss Lennox, Clegg tells me, was working on her own to recover the lost handkerchief—so I don’t think she employed Mr. Llewellyn. Now—listen. I watched our gentleman very carefully when we were all in here this morning—when Stewart sent for him and also afterwards—and I’m pretty confident that he’s uneasy about something in this library. From the way in which he used his eyes on this desk—I deduce a document or paper of some kind. I may be wrong, of course. This is where I come to the remark I made when we came in just now. During our absence at Colonel Leach-Fletcher’s—Goodall came as well, remember—he may have made hay while the sun shone. But I think not, my dear Daventry, I think not.” He crossed to Stewart’s bookcase. “You may have noticed more than once in your experience that a man will very often put an important paper handed to him unexpectedly into a receptacle that he has handy at the moment. As I see the facts of the case after Colonel Leach-Fletcher said his ‘good-bye’ to Laurence Stewart, Stewart returned to the book that he had been reading. The Colonel was good enough to remember its title. It was Renan’s ‘Vie de Jésus.’ ” Anthony stopped and pondered for a minute or two. Peter wondered what was troubling him. Whatever it was, it soon passed. He lifted up the glass front of the bookcase and sought the book he had just mentioned. “A singularly beautiful piece of work, this, Daventry,” he declared. “But I expect you’ve read it.” He brought it over to Peter—then held it by the two sides of the cover and fluttered its leaves together quickly. A paper fell on the carpet. Peter’s hand, disengaged and therefore at an advantage, beat Anthony’s in its descent, by the merest fraction. He ran his eye over it with eager excitement.
“It’s a letter,” he cried—“from Morgan Llewellyn.”
“Really,” said Anthony—“and to whom?”
Peter’s eyes searched for the information. “To Miss Lennox,” he gasped.
“Voilà!” murmured Mr. Bathurst.
CHAPTER XV.
Mr. Daventry Gets His Feet Wet
“Read it to me, Daventry,” said Anthony. “Upon what precisely does Mr. Llewellyn find time to write to Miss Lennox? For the sake of her ‘beaux yeux’?”
Peter tossed it to him—rather ungraciously let it be said. “Read it yourself, though it seems to me to concern Miss Lennox herself and Miss Lennox only.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and strode to the bookcase—where he stood, moodily, with his back to his companion.
“ ‘Dear Incomparable Marjorie’ ”—read Mr. Bathurst—“ ‘At the risk of punishing myself far too severely to contemplate, by driving the smile from your two wonderful eyes’—Mr. Llewellyn wields a pretty pen, Daventry—you’d better listen to this—‘I once again write to you to ask you to reconsider the answer you gave me a little while ago to a very important question. A question that affects me—body and soul. For, dear, peerless Marjorie, monotonous though it may sound to you—I love you! To say that I worship the ground that you walk upon is by no means an exaggeration—judge then how much more I worship you! When you are away from me life is most unutterably empty—the sun ceases to shine—the flower to bloom—the bird to sing—everything is bitter emptiness and desperate waste. Marjorie—marry me! I refuse to accept your previous answers as final! And if your guardian endeavors to interfere between us, as you threaten will happen—his blood be upon his own head! I am a desperate man—desperate with love for you, Marjorie—and desperate men have a habit of using desperate remedies. Let me know your answer after dinner to-night, and may that answer bring mad joy to the heart of—Morgan Llewellyn.’ ” Anthony whistled, “Dear me, Daventry, do you know I hardly suspected anything quite so ardent as this!” He looked up, and although his tone still contained a hint of raillery, there was at the same time a strong hint of gravity also. But Peter was in no mood for banter and in none too good a temper for serious discussion.
“After all, say what you like,” he muttered, “that letter was written to Miss Marjorie Lennox, and it hardly seems decent to me for us to have read it—that’s the worst of this investigation business.”