She took from an envelope a letter containing only a few words and passed it to him. “Read that, and tell me what you make of it,” she said. “There is no formal beginning, and no signature. But you see it is addressed to my father, and was evidently delivered by hand.”
Upon the flap of the faded envelope Wingate saw some initials, two C’s in a cipher scroll embossed in black, an old-fashioned monogram such as was in vogue in the early “sixties.”
Then he read upon the half-sheet of notepaper, traced in a bold hand in ink that was brown, as follows:
“You have ruined and disgraced me, and forced me to fly the country and become a wanderer on the face of the earth. Well, I will be even with you. I will wait, if necessary all my life, till my turn comes. Then, when it does, I will strike you at the zenith of your career, and mete out to you the suffering you have dealt to me.”
Chapter Fifteen.
In which Smeaton Makes a Discovery.
Wingate laid down the letter and looked at Sheila, who was regarding him expectantly.
“What do you make of it?” she repeated.