Jake slipped out and was seen no more.
CHAPTER XXII.
A SLEIGHRIDE HOME.
That was a meeting not soon to be forgotten. It was a signal for the casting away of every element of secrecy, and Helen told her story.
She told the story of her brother, of his sickness when a child, of the resultant distortion of his character into that of a man of strange and incongruous genius and weakness, and of the embarrassment he had caused her and her mother. He, it was, she said, who had written the skull-and-cross-bones letter.
"Who wrote the other anonymous letter that you received at the Institute?" Hazel Edwards inquired.
"I don't know," Helen replied with a faint smile. "Perhaps these boys can answer that question."
"I must plead guilty to that," announced Clifford, advancing with a bow.
"But what's the surprise you were going to spring?" inquired Ruth Hazelton, mischievously. "Is this it?"