"I am sorry you did that. It might have contained some clew. Tell me all, Madge. Surely, darling, you don't believe—"
"Jack, how can you think so?" She glanced up at him with a tender, trustful, and yet half-distressed look in her eyes. "Forgive me, dear. It is not that I doubt you, but—but I must ask you one question. You are a free man? There is no tie that could forbid you to marry me?"
"I am a free man," Jack answered her solemnly. "Put such evil thoughts out of your mind, my darling. By the passionate love I feel for you, by my own honor, I swear that I have an honest man's right to make you mine. But, as I told you before, I had a reckless past—"
"I don't want to hear about it," Madge interrupted.
No one was within sight or sound, so she put her arms about his neck and lifted her lips to his.
"Jack, you have made me so happy," she whispered. "I will forget that false, wicked letter. I love you, love you, dear. And I will be your wife whenever you wish—"
Her voice broke, and he kissed a tear from her burning cheek.
"My Madge!" he said, softly. "Do you care so much for me?"
Half an hour later they parted at the Hanover Gate. As he turned his steps homeward, the cowardly anonymous letter lay heavily on his mind. Who could have written it, and what did it contain? He more than suspected that it referred to his youthful marriage with Diane Merode.
When he reached the studio he found on his desk a letter bearing a French stamp. He opened it curiously.