Once more Aubrey and Bee together, with a simultaneous impulse, looked at this intruder into their story.
“Mamma! send him away. I should like to kill him!” said Bee within her clenched teeth.
“Be quiet, Charlie. Mr. Leigh, I am ready to put this or any other evidence against you into your hands.”
He bowed very gravely, and then stood once more as if he were made of stone. Mrs. Kingsward faltered very much, her agitated face flushed. “It begins,” she said, in a low fluttering voice, “My dear little wife——”
Then there came a very strange sound into the agitated silence, for Aubrey Leigh, on trial for more than his life, here laughed. “What more, what more?” he said.
“No, it is not that. It is—‘I don’t want my dear little wife to be troubled about anything. It can all be done quite easily and quietly, without giving an occasion for people to talk; a settlement made and everything you could desire. I shall make arrangements about everything to-day.’ It is signed A. L., and it is in your handwriting. Bee, you can see it is in his handwriting; look for yourself.”
Bee would not turn her head. She thought she saw the writing written in fire upon the air—all his familiar turns in it. How well she knew the A. L.; but she did not look at it—would not look. She had enough to do looking at his face, which was the letter—the book she was studying now.
“No doubt it is my handwriting,” he said, “only it was addressed not to any other woman, but to my wife.”
“Your wife died two years ago, Mr. Leigh; and that is dated Christmas—this year.”
“That is a lie!” he cried; then restrained himself painfully. “You know I don’t mean you—but the date and the assumption is entirely a lie. Give me time, and I will tell you exactly when it was written. I remember the letter. It was when I had promised Amy to provide for her friend on condition that she should be sent away—for she made my house miserable.”