Anna took his hand between both of hers and looked up at him through her tears.
"You have been kindness itself, Mr. Sydney. You had your duty to Mr. Baxendale and you have done it nobly."
The man turned away and thought of Kyser. Anna's trust in his integrity was almost too much for him to bear. Rapidly the little devils of pro and con invaded his conscience. Then and there he registered a silent vow that come what might he would go through with it. There was no turning back now; he would not add cowardice to his crime. If Miranda were still in the land of the living, his would be the hand that would save her and deal vengeance where it was due. He hoped that, if need be, he might die in the doing. He went into his bedroom and took from his trunk a leather writing-case, and from one of its pockets a letter. It had been handed to him as they left the hotel in Paris, and was from the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer. He had laughed as he read it and put it away in his case. Now he read it with all seriousness. It was merely a short note, in which the writer had set down boyishly his admiration for Miss Baxendale. He had heroically demanded that should that lady ever be in trouble, he should be called upon to come to her assistance. A letter addressed under cover to M. de Brea, the manager of the hotel, would always find the duke.
It was a letter breathing the spirit of knight errantry, such a letter as a love-sick boy of twenty would write. And yet, as Edward read the words under the changed conditions, they seemed to hold a deal of truth and manliness. The duke was a high-spirited young man, a little addicted, as Edward had seen, to the vices of his class, but he had liked and admired him in many ways.
There could be no harm, he told himself, in writing to him. Perhaps his grace had already forgotten that he had written such a letter; but Edward rather thought otherwise.
That evening after dinner he took a letter out and posted it himself. The outer envelope was addressed to—
M. de Brea,
Manager,
Ruttez Hotel,
Rue Scribe, Paris;
the inner merely to—
His Grace le Duc de Choleaux Lasuer
(by the courtesy of M. de Brea).