Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "I must find out who wrote that letter."
"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her hands; "but how will you do it?"
"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband—as you know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter."
The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge."
"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace."
The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains which half veiled the view beyond.
"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that old Sheraton chair on the terrace."
"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked.
"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason."
"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied.