"He is proved an impostor, Mr. Davenport, believe me for once."
"Pig-headed as ever, I see," groaned the lawyer. "Come tell me why you sent me to Bala?" in a wheedling tone. "Be calm and give your reasons frankly."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I did not send you to Bala."
"Confound the woman!" shouted Davenport, "she denies everything. She is mad! she'll deny the work of her own hand next, I do believe. Why did you write me this letter, Miss Margaret Walsingham?" (snatching it from his pocket and waving it like a banner of victory before her eyes.) "Your own handwriting—your own signature, madam. Please do not shock me by denying it."
She looked at the letter—her own familiar chirography started her out of countenance.
Truly, Roland Mortlake's was an accommodating genius.
Thus it ran:
"Dear Mr. Davenport:—I have just receive an extraordinary telegram from some Dr. Lythwaite in Bala, Merioneth. I inclose it to you. Does it not convince you that my suspicions have a just foundation? If you can withstand the evidence of this stranger, who has never heard of my suspicions, you are willfully shutting your eyes to a plain fact.
"St. Udo Brand lies ill at Bala—send Davenport to receive his instructions to Gelert's Hotel, Coventry street.'
"That is what the telegram says; now I request that for once you will obey my wish, and fly thither by the first train.
"Tell no one, not even Gay, for he is in the confidence of this wretch here. Heaven knows whether you are not the same.
"Yours, anxiously,
"Margaret Walsingham."
In the envelope was the bogus telegram; no wonder that the lawyer, suspicious though he was, had been completely deceived this time.
"I can show you as strange an epistle, which I received," cried Margaret, going to her desk for Dr. Gay's purported letter, and handing it to Mr. Davenport.