"In all those parts where I can test its truth it appears to be true. He referred me to Bertha for the fact that she aided his escape at night."
"Birdie will not corroborate that. She will tell you nothing."
"He would hardly have asked her to corroborate a lie," said Alden. "He told me that when in New York he knew he was dying, his conscience caused him to bring some documents which he believed to incriminate Beardsley; that he gave them to you by appointment on the night of Eve's death; that after giving them he discovered that Adam's wife had been spying on the interview and had followed you up the hill. She showed him a certain place where she saw you hide these letters. He added, in the most matter-of-fact way, that he then killed Eve for her treachery to you, and because she would only make mischief."
Bertha stood up in great wrath. "How can you say that my sister did such things as this? No word of this is true. How can you believe a man who is a murderer?"
Alden went on looking at Hermione. "I went to the tree of which he gave me a rough drawing."
He took from his coat two packets of old letters, with their wrapping of oil-silk, which he had unfastened.
"I have read them," he said. "I did not wish to do so without your permission and that of Mr. Durgan, as they chiefly belong to his wife; but it was necessary, and the fact that I found them there, and also their contents, prove the most unlikely part of his tale to be true—that you have trafficked secretly with such a man as he, and crept out at night to meet him and hide documents which——" He paused half-way through the sentence; his voice broke, and the tremor coming at so strong a moment, brought all the little gracious ways of his long friendship and service for Hermione to their minds. The strange scene vibrated with a throb of sorrow.
"Herbert," she said falteringly, "you have indeed become my enemy, concerting with this poor wretch to outwit me, spying upon my most private actions."
"Nay, Hermione; I did not even ask the man for his evidence. I was forced, in the name of common justice, and above all, of justice to you, to hear it; and I am justified in what I have done since, because I have done it to save you from yourself."
"I beg your pardon," said she. "For a moment I spoke unjustly; but, whatever your motives, you have become my enemy. Those letters were stolen by a servant to injure a master who, whatever else his faults, had treated him with unvarying kindness. They were given to me under the mistaken idea that I could use them for my own advantage. I cannot; nor can you."