"It will make an impression; it will be your word against Bagshot's. The point proved will be that instead of your having separated in anger, with words of bitterness and jealousy, you separated in peace, as friends. Her letter will be important, if it proves this."
"It does. I have also another—a little note telling me of her husband's safety, and dropped into a letter-box on her way to the train. And I have the locket she gave me on the day of our last interview. She took it from her own neck and clasped it round mine a moment before I left her."
"Did Bagshot know of the existence of this locket?"
"She must have known it. For Helen said she always wore it; and Bagshot dressed her daily."
"Will you let me see it? And the two letters also, if they are here?"
"They are up stairs. I will get them."
What he wished to find out was whether she wore the locket. She came back so soon that he said to himself she could not have had it on—there had not been time to remove it; besides, as he held it in his hand it was not warm. He read the two letters carefully. Then he took up the locket again and examined it. It was a costly trinket, set with diamonds; within was a miniature, a life-like picture of Helen's husband.
He looked at his rival silently. The man was in prison, charged with the highest crime in the catalogue of crimes, and Dexter believed him guilty. Yet it was, all the same, above all and through all, the face of his rival still—of his triumphant, successful rival.
He laid down the locket, rose, and went over to Anne.
She was standing by the window, much dejected that he had not been more impressed by the importance of that which she had revealed. She looked up as he came near.