“No. It is not,” he replied, bluntly.
“Then what is to be done?” I asked, after a pause.
“The matter rests entirely with you, Ralph,” he replied. “I know what I should do in a similar case.”
“What would you do? Advise me,” I urged eagerly.
“I should take the whole of the correspondence, just as it is, place it in the grate there, and burn it,” he said.
I was not prepared for such a suggestion. A similar idea had occurred to me, but I feared to suggest to him such a mode of defeating the ends of justice.
“But if I do that will you give me a vow of secrecy?” I asked, quickly. “Recollect that such a step is a serious offence against the law.”
“When I pass out of this room I shall have no further recollection of ever having seen any letters,” he answered, again giving me his hand. “In this matter my desire is only to help you. If, as you believe, Ethelwynn is innocent, then no harm can be done in destroying the letters, whereas if she is actually the assassin she must, sooner or later, betray her guilt. A woman may be clever, but she can never successfully cover the crime of murder.”
“Then you are willing that I, as finder of those letters, shall burn them? And further, that no word shall pass regarding this discovery?”
“Most willing,” he replied. “Come,” he added, commencing to gather them together. “Let us lose no time, or perhaps the constable on duty below or one of the plain-clothes men may come prying in here.”