“Let her see it, poor child,” said the Signora.
Richard Thornton took a leather memorandum-book from one of the pockets of his loose coat. There were several papers in this book. He selected one, and handed it silently to Eleanor Vane. It was a sheet of letter-paper, written upon in her father’s hand, but a part of it had been torn away.
Even had the whole of the letter been left, the writer’s style was so wild and incoherent that it would have been no easy task to understand his meaning. In its torn and fragmentary state, this scrap of writing left by George Vane was only a scribble of confused and broken sentences. The sheet of paper had been torn from the top to the bottom, so that the end of each line was missing. The following broken lines were therefore all that Eleanor could decipher, and in these the words were blotted and indistinct.
My poor Eleanor,—My poor injured
worst your cruel sister, Hortensia Bannis
could not be bad enough. I am a thief
robbed and cheated my own
been decoyed to this hell upon eart
wretches who are base enough to
a helpless old man who had trust