her."

I had the door in my hand to open it for her--but I stopped, on a
sudden, to ask an important question before we set forth.

"One of the paragraphs of the anonymous letter," I said, "contains some
sentences of minute personal description. Sir Percival Glyde's name is
not mentioned, I know--but does that description at all resemble him?"

"Accurately--even in stating his age to be forty-five----"

Forty-five; and she was not yet twenty-one! Men of his age married
wives of her age every day--and experience had shown those marriages to
be often the happiest ones. I knew that--and yet even the mention of
his age, when I contrasted it with hers, added to my blind hatred and
distrust of him.

"Accurately," Miss Halcombe continued, "even to the scar on his right
hand, which is the scar of a wound that he received years since when he
was travelling in Italy. There can be no doubt that every peculiarity
of his personal appearance is thoroughly well known to the writer of
the letter."

"Even a cough that he is troubled with is mentioned, if I remember
right?"

"Yes, and mentioned correctly. He treats it lightly himself, though it
sometimes makes his friends anxious about him."

"I suppose no whispers have ever been heard against his character?"

"Mr. Hartright! I hope you are not unjust enough to let that infamous
letter influence you?"

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks, for I knew that it HAD influenced
me.

"I hope not," I answered confusedly. "Perhaps I had no right to ask
the question."

"I am not sorry you asked it," she said, "for it enables me to do
justice to Sir Percival's reputation. Not a whisper, Mr. Hartright,
has ever reached me, or my family, against him. He has fought
successfully two contested elections, and has come out of the ordeal
unscathed. A man who can do that, in England, is a man whose character
is established."

I opened the door for her in silence, and followed her out. She had
not convinced me. If the recording angel had come down from heaven to
confirm her, and had opened his book to my mortal eyes, the recording
angel would not have convinced me.

We found the gardener at work as usual. No amount of questioning could
extract a single answer of any importance from the lad's impenetrable
stupidity. The woman who had given him the letter was an elderly
woman; she had not spoken a word to him, and she had gone away towards
the south in a great hurry. That was a