Mrs. Temple gave a little scornful laugh.
“I have discovered, I think, where the beauty that all you men raved about is hidden; but I must be sure,” she said. “You guess what I mean? A letter came for John Temple yesterday morning—a passionate love letter—from this address,” and as she spoke she drew out the address that she had seen on May’s letter to John, and placed it in Henderson’s hand. “I am almost sure this letter was from Miss Churchill.”
“Did you see it?” asked Henderson, eagerly, and with quivering lips.
“I saw the first lines of it. It was lying open on a table in his room when I went in, and I have no doubt it was from her. But I want you to find out this; to go up to town and see this girl yourself—I mean to watch the house until she comes out of it. Do not speak to her or call upon her, or perhaps she would again disappear. But if what I believe is true John Temple shall bitterly repent the gross deception he has practiced on us all.”
Henderson ground his strong white teeth together.
“And you believe,” he said, hoarsely, “that—that May Churchill—is anything to Temple?”
Mrs. Temple laughed bitterly.
“I believe she is everything to him,” she answered. “The letter I saw began, ‘My dearest, dearest John.’”
A fierce oath broke from Henderson’s lips.
“If I believed he had wronged this girl—” he began.