"I will listen to you."
"The family of General Travis are not what you suppose them. I can prove them unworthy your confidence and affection. Will you link your fate with that of one who"——
I hesitated.
"Go on," said Sinclair, calmly.
"Read, read for yourself!" I exclaimed, placing the letter I had received from Mrs Twisleton, without further ceremony, in his hands.
He did read—every line, without the smallest surprise or perturbation—and then folded the document, and gave it back to me. I thought him mad.
"This is no news to me, Wilson," he said quietly. "I have been put on my guard respecting these slanderers. Their baseness does not take me by surprise. The trick is a poor one."
"The trick!"
"Yes; if it deserve no harsher name. What know you of the writer of that letter?"
I had but one answer to give to that question—"Nothing." And the name of Mrs Twisleton was sacred.