o you? The Rector?"

"No."

"How did they reach you, then?"

"Through Father Benwell."

She started at that name like a woman electrified.

"I knew it!" she cried. "It _is_ the priest who has wrecked my married
life--and he got his information from those letters, before he put them
into your hands." She waited a while, and recovered herself. "That was
the first of the questions I wanted to put to you," she said. "I am
answered. I ask no more."

She was surely wrong about Father Benwell? I tried to show her why.

I told her that my reverend friend had put the letters into my hand,
with the seal which protected them unbroken. She laughed disdainfully.
Did I know him so little as to doubt for a moment that he could break
a seal and replace it again? This view was entirely new to me; I was
startled, but not convinced. I never desert my friends--even when they
are friends of no very long standing--and I still tried to defend Father
Benwell. The only result was to make her alter her intention of asking
me no more questions. I innocently roused in her a new curiosity. She
was eager to know how I had first become acquainted with the priest, and
how he had contrived to possess himself of papers which were intended
for my reading only.

There was but one way of answering her.

It was far from easy to a man like myself, unaccustomed to state
circumstances in their proper order--but I had no other choice than
to reply, by telling the long story of the theft and discovery of the
Rector's papers. So far as Father Benwell was concerned, the narrative
only confirmed her suspicions. For the rest, the circumstances which
most interested her were the circumstances associated with the French
boy.

"Anything connected with that poor creature," she said, "has a dreadful
interest for me now."

"Did you know him?" I asked, with some surprise.

"I knew him and his mother--you shall hear how, at another time.
I suppose I felt a presentiment that the boy would have some evil
influence over me. At any rate, when I accidentally touched him,
I trembled as if I had touched a serpent. You will think me
superstitious--but, after what you have said, it is certainly true that
he has been the indirect cause of the misfortune that has fallen on me.
How came he to steal the papers? Did you ask the Rector, when you went
to Belhaven?"

"I asked the Rector nothing. But he thought it his duty to tell me all
that he knew of the theft."

She d