its gloomy fierceness and
relaxed into an embarrassed solicitude. "Ought we to call the maid?" he
whispered. "Poor child!" murmured Neeld.

The sobs dominated these timid utterances. Was it they who had brought
her to this state, or was it the letter? Iver stirred uneasily in his
chair, his business manner and uncharitable shrewdness suddenly seeming
out of place. "Give her time," he said gently. "Give her time, poor
girl."

Mina raised her head; tears ran down her cheeks; she was woe
personified.

"Time's no use," she groaned. "It's all over now."

Neeld caught at the state of affairs by an intuition to which his
previous knowledge helped him. Duplay had been baffled by Harry's
diplomacy and expected no action from his side. To Neeld such a
development seemed possible, and it was the only thing which to his mind
could throw light on Mina's behavior.

"Won't you show us the letter?" he asked gently.

"Oh, yes. And I'll tell you anything you like now. It doesn't matter
now." She looked at Neeld; she was loyal to the end. "I was the only
person who knew it," she said to Iver.

That was too much. Timid he might be, even to the point of cowardice;
but now, when the result of confession would be no harm to anybody but
himself, Neeld felt he must speak if he were to have any chance of going
on thinking himself a gentleman--and it is an unpleasant thing for a man
to realize that he has none.

"I must correct Madame Zabriska," he said. "I knew it too."

"What?" cried Duplay. Iver turned quick scrutinizing eyes on his friend.

"You knew too? You knew what?" he demanded.

"The facts we have been endeavoring to obtain from Madame Zabriska."

"The facts about----"

"Oh, it's all in the letter," cried Mina in a quick burst of impatience.
"There it is."

She flung it across to Iver and rested her chin on her hands, while her
eyes followed his expression as he read. Duplay was all excitement, but
old Mr Neeld had sunk back in his chair with a look of fretful
weariness. Iver was deliberate; his glasses needed some fitting on; the
sheet of paper required some smoothing after its contact with Mina's
disordered and disordering hair. Besides, he was really as excited as
Duplay and almost as agitated as Mina herself. But these emotions are
not appropriate to business men. So he was very calm and deliberate in
his demeanor; he might have been going to deliver a whole speech from
the way he cleared his throat.

"I have th