I will make some permanent arrangement
for you. Write me at once, for I shall be very
anxious until I hear from you.
“Ever your friend,
“William Mapleson.”
“I thought the writing was familiar to me. I suspected my father wrote it from the first, and yet his hand has changed very much since this was written. But surely there is nothing in this merely friendly epistle to warrant such dreadful suspicions as have nearly driven me wild during these last few weeks. I have believed the very worst—that it was he who enticed her away, and then betrayed her confidence. I know that he was in New Mexico at that time; I know that she went there and lived with some one for a year; and then that ring seemed to prove everything to me. Still, this is not a lover’s letter; it is simply a friendly expression of sympathy and interest, and a desire to provide for a relative who had no one to rely upon. Heavens! will this mystery never be solved?” he concluded, rising and shutting the portfolio, but retaining the scrap of paper he had found.
He replaced everything in the trunk, closed it, though he could not lock it again, then pushed it back under the bed; after which he went quickly out of the house, feeling depressed and bitterly disappointed that he had discovered nothing tangible, either to prove or dissipate his suspicions.
As he stepped off the veranda, something white fluttered in the tall grass at his feet.
It was another letter.
A thrill went tingling all along his nerves, as he stooped and picked it up.