Then, suddenly, it burst upon me what a hideous thing it was that she had done by keeping silent. It was the letter, arriving at that last desperate moment, which had snatched Marcia Lawrence and Burr Curtiss from the horrible pit which yawned before them. The writing of that letter was not an act of enmity, but of mercy. Harriet Kingdon had stood by and uttered no word of warning—I shuddered at the utter fiendishness of it! But who had written the letter? Then, in a flash, I knew!
"What is it, Lester?" demanded Mr. Royce, wheeling suddenly around. I suppose some exclamation must have burst from me, though I was not conscious of uttering any sound. "What is it? I can guess what you're thinking of—I can't think of anything else."
"I believe," I answered, "that I know who it was wrote that letter to Miss Lawrence."
"You do!" he cried. "Who was it?"
"Wait!" I said, and closed my eyes and pressed my hands tight against my temples in the effort at recollection. "It was Mrs. Lawrence's aunt—her father's sister. It was to her house she came when she ran away. It was there, no doubt, that the child was born."
"And who is she?" asked our junior. "Where does she live?"
I made another desperate effort of memory. At last I had it.
"Her name is Heminway," I said. "I don't know her address, except that it's somewhere in New York. She was married to a banker."
"Oh, I knew him—Martin Heminway," and Mr. Royce jerked down a directory and ran feverishly through its pages. "Here it is—East Fifty-fourth Street."
He closed the book with a bang and took down his hat.