He turned it over and over, reading and re-reading the superscription.
“I wonder,” he said aloud, “whether it contains anything of interest?”
Then he turned towards the fire. There was a small copper kettle upon it, which had been ordered by Hugh to be brought up so that they might brew warm whisky. From the spout steam was issuing.
“Am I such a low, mean spy that I should contemplate opening my friend’s letters?” he asked himself at last. “Yet—yet it is not for my own benefit. Would Hugh ever forgive me if he knew all? If he knew my secret—ah! by heaven! it’s too horrible, the very thought of the crime, of its punishment, unnerves me. Coward—yes, coward at heart; afraid of justice, and under the thrall of a daring unscrupulous gang. What can I do, how can I act? Surely there can be no great harm in opening this.”
He stood several moments in silence.
“Yes!” he exclaimed suddenly, “I’ll do it!”
Then he held the envelope in the stream of steam. In a few moments the gum had become loosened, and he was reading the missive.
When he had finished it his face grew hard and stern. Slowly he replaced the letter in its envelope and re-gummed the flap in its original position. Standing before the fire, his arms folded, his head bent deep in thought, he muttered to himself:
“So that is your plan, Valérie! As a masterpiece of ingenuity and chicanery, it does you great credit, and fully sustains your reputation. But the bird is scarcely in the net yet. You have me under your merciless hand, it is true, and you know well that I dare not expose you, for you could send me to a convict’s cell, or worse. No, I am not such a fool as to run the risk. I know you and your brutal myrmidons too well for that. I cannot show you in your true colours, except vaguely, and therefore ineffectually; still we may be quits yet.”
Taking the lamp from the table, he placed it upon the old bureau wherein Hugh had found the strange letters and photograph.