"I know he does, and that you love him. My dear, if I could have won you I should not have stayed away all these months; but I owed you that—and I tried to play the game."
"Colling," she answered, in a burst of warmth and kindliness, "I never liked you so much as I do now, Colling. I think it is because I feel I can lean upon you and trust you——"
"Poor little Butterfly!" he answered; and there were tears in the eyes of this hardened man of fashion, tears which sprang to his eyes in spite of himself and showed the deep tenderness beneath.
"But, Colling," Peggy went on anxiously, "have we any chance at all of proving it against her? She has been awfully clever about it all, hasn't she?"
Collingwood shook his head rather hopelessly. "I doubt if we have any chance at all," he said. "But there is just one thing—I have just remembered it. I have a sort of clue, and that is one which Dicky has just given me when he was here a few minutes ago."
"Oh! Dicky!" Peggy said, with a wan little smile.
"Well," Collingwood resumed, "of course no one would call Dicky intellectual and that, but I really think there is something in what he said this time. I'll tell you. He has consulted an American handwriting expert about the letters, and he says that they are the work of some one who can write with the left hand. I know that I can't write with my left hand. But what about Alice?"
"I don't know," Peggy answered slowly; "I have never heard of her doing so."
"Or using it more than the ordinary?" Collingwood continued.
"Yes—stay," Peggy replied eagerly. "She is ever so good with it at billiards."