“I know that my sister-in-law has left her home,” Alan replied gravely; “nothing more.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing; really. She left three letters: one for Mrs. French, another for Miss French, and the third for yourself.”
“And you.... She left you some message?”
“Not a word, verbal or written.”
“Strange,” mused the lawyer, taking up his letter and again glancing through its pages. “I can’t understand it. Mr. Warburton—pardon the question—was there any difference, any misunderstanding, between you and Leslie?”
“Does not the letter itself explain?”
“That is what puzzles me. The letter tells her own story—a story that I knew before, in part at least; a sad story, proving to me that the girl has been made to suffer bitterly; but it does not, from first to last, mention your name.”
Alan sat silent for a moment. Then he turned his face toward the lawyer, as if acting upon some resolve.
“Yesterday,” he began quietly, “I held an interview with my sister-in-law. It was not an amicable interview; we have been on unfriendly terms since—since the night of the masquerade.”