“Signed it!” She was almost in tears. “What difference will that make when I claim the letter? I must find it! But of course some one who knows me will be sure to find it. And that letter, of all letters!”
“If I were you, Edith,” Rose advised, calmly, “I shouldn't—”
“Well?”—with her hand on the door-knob.
“—try to find it. It will be impossible to trace it to you, in that case.”
“But don't you see—”
“Wait!” Rose caught and pulled her back. “How could they know? You'll get in much deeper. What had you written?”
“I said, 'Dear Christopher'—”
Rose laughed. “I'm glad you didn't say 'Dear Mr. Brander.' In that case you'd have given him away. But 'Christopher' is such an unusual name, they might—Sherlock Holmes could trace him by it alone.”
“You are a Job's comforter—a perfect Eliphaz the Temanite! Oh, oh!” Her soft crescendo was again tragic.
“In effect you said: 'Dear Christopher, as you have so often entreated, I have at last decided to be thine. The tinkle of thy shekels, now that I am so nearly shekelless myself, has done its fatal worst. I am thine—'”