"Miss Valentine Sandford—Mr. Sandford's daughter. I was engaged to be married to her."
"Since when?"
"I had proposed and was waiting for my answer. Then that very day she sent me a telegram. It contained the single word 'yes' and was signed by her initials. It came at the same moment that the messenger brought back the money from the bank."
"And it is the same V. S, who sends this message?" asked Indiman, smoothing out the telegraph blank which he held in his hand.
The young man took a bundle of papers from his breast-pocket. They were all telegraphic messages, and each was a suggestion towards self-destruction in one form or another. "Suicide's corner" at Niagara, poison, the rope—all couched in language of devilish ingenuity in innuendo, and ending in every instance with the expression, "Is life more than honor? Answer. V. S."
"I have had at least one every day," said the young man. "Sometimes two or three. Generally in the morning, but they also come at any hour."
"And Miss Sandford?"
"I wrote and told her of my terrible misfortune, released her from the unannounced engagement, and begged her to believe in me until I could clear myself. I have not seen her since the fatal day of the 15th of January."
"And you have received from her only these—these messages?"
"That is all."