“Mr. Hubbell came in about five, quite excited—very hurried. He went into his office and shut the door—later he called me and said, ‘Letter to Mr. James Langley’—then he changed his mind and said he would write it by hand. About an hour later he came in and told me to go out and get some stamps and then to stamp and mail at once the two letters on his desk. When I came back he’d—done it. I stood staring at him and at the letters—they were to you and Mrs. Hubbell—I saw that. And then poor Mrs. Hubbell came in. The rest all was told at the inquest.”
“Yes—all that about going out for stamps. But why nothing about my letter?”
“Mrs. Hubbell read hers and then picked up yours and said to me that Mr. Hubbell wanted those letters to be a sacred secret—that she would give you yours personally and that I was especially not to mention that she had had any letter. It was his wish. It was all she could say. She put the letters in her dress and fainted dead away.”
Jim sat looking blankly at the credulous little thing before him, reciting her story with such interest in its drama.
“Mrs. Hubbell was good to you?” he asked.
“She was an angel.” The girl’s eyes filled. “Said she would do all she could to carry out his wishes and she told me that the trouble between them had been a hideous misunderstanding. She sorrowed terribly and she sent me away to get away from the reporters. They asked me so many questions. But I never told about those letters. Only I supposed——”
“That I got mine? Now, Miss Christie, I want you to keep your silence even more strictly. Never mention those letters or the tragedy again. That will do, today. You needn’t worry. Nothing will happen.”
Poor little Miss Christie was dazed at what she had done, a good romance spoiling in her mind. She had thought Jim and Mrs. Hubbell, lovers, innocent lovers, refusing to marry because of their fidelity to the dead man. And he had killed himself because he had found out that he had accused her unjustly. Had she not seen many a scenario with even more serious complications?
Jim found Rose at home. She was plainly surprised and pleased at his voice over the house telephone and received him in the grey room, in modified negligee,—a white Mandarin coat over a gold silk skirt. She came towards him both hands outstretched but the grimness on his face stopped her.
“I came,” he said, “for my letter.”