“‘Have you thought,’ I inquired, ‘of who the person is to be?’
“‘I have thought,’ said the doctor, taking up Armadale’s letter ‘of the person to whom this letter is addressed.’
“The answer startled me. Was it possible that he and Bashwood knew one another? I put the question immediately.
“‘Until to-day I never so much as heard of the gentleman’s name,’ said the doctor. ‘I have simply pursued the inductive process of reasoning, for which we are indebted to the immortal Bacon. How does this very important letter come into your possession? I can’t insult you by supposing it to have been stolen. Consequently, it has come to you with the leave and license of the person to whom it is addressed. Consequently, that person is in your confidence. Consequently, he is the first person I think of. You see the process? Very good. Permit me a question or two, on the subject of Mr. Bashwood, before we go on any further.’
“The doctor’s questions went as straight to the point as usual. My answers informed him that Mr. Bashwood stood toward Armadale in the relation of steward; that he had received the letter at Thorpe Ambrose that morning, and had brought it straight to me by the first train; that he had not shown it, or spoken of it before leaving, to Major Milroy or to any one else; that I had not obtained this service at his hands by trusting him with my secret; that I had communicated with him in the character of Armadale’s widow; that he had suppressed the letter, under those circumstances, solely in obedience to a general caution I had given him to keep his own counsel, if anything strange happened at Thorpe Ambrose, until he had first consulted me; and, lastly, that the reason why he had done as I told him in this matter, was that in this matter, and in all others, Mr. Bashwood was blindly devoted to my interests.
“At that point in the interrogatory, the doctor’s eyes began to look at me distrustfully behind the doctor’s spectacles.
“‘What is the secret of this blind devotion of Mr. Bashwood’s to your interests?’ he asked.
“I hesitated for a moment—in pity to Bashwood, not in pity to myself. ‘If you must know,’ I answered, ‘Mr. Bashwood is in love with me.’
“‘Ay! ay!’ exclaimed the doctor, with an air of relief. ‘I begin to understand now. Is he a young man?’
“‘He is an old man.’