play very softly. It was ten minutes
before Trent spoke.

'If he chooses to reply that he will say nothing?'

Mrs Manderson looked over her shoulder. 'Of course he dare not take that
line. He will speak to prevent you from denouncing him.'

'But I'm not going to do that anyhow. You wouldn't allow it--you said
so; besides, I won't if you would. The thing's too doubtful now.'

'But,' she laughed, 'poor Mr Marlowe doesn't know you won't, does he?'

Trent sighed. 'What extraordinary things codes of honour are!' he
remarked abstractedly. 'I know that there are things I should do, and
never think twice about, which would make you feel disgraced if you did
them--such as giving any one who grossly insulted me a black eye, or
swearing violently when I barked my shin in a dark room. And now you are
calmly recommending me to bluff Marlowe by means of a tacit threat which
I don't mean; a thing which hews most abandoned fiend did never, in
the drunkenness of guilt--well, anyhow, I won't do it.' He resumed his
writing, and the lady, with an indulgent smile, returned to playing very
softly.

In a few minutes more, Trent said: 'At last I am his faithfully. Do
you want to see it?' She ran across the twilight room, and turned on a
reading lamp beside the escritoire. Then, leaning on his shoulder, she
read what follows:

DEAR MR MARLOWE,--YOU WILL PERHAPS REMEMBER THAT WE MET, UNDER UNHAPPY
CIRCUMSTANCES, IN JUNE OF LAST YEAR AT MARLSTONE.

ON THAT OCCASION IT WAS MY DUTY, AS REPRESENTING A NEWSPAPER, TO MAKE AN
INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE DEATH OF THE LATE
SIGSBEE MANDERSON. I DID SO, AND I ARRIVED AT CERTAIN CONCLUSIONS. YOU
MAY LEARN FROM THE ENCLOSED MANUSCRIPT, WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN AS
A DISPATCH FOR MY NEWSPAPER, WHAT THOSE CONCLUSIONS WERE. FOR REASONS
WHICH IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO STATE I DECIDED AT THE LAST MOMENT NOT TO
MAKE THEM PUBLIC, OR TO COMMUNICATE THEM TO YOU, AND THEY ARE KNOWN TO
ONLY TWO PERSONS BESIDE MYSELF.

At this point Mrs Manderson raised her eyes quickly from the letter. Her
dark brows were drawn together. 'Two persons?' she said with a note of
enquiry.

'Your uncle is the other. I sought him out last night and told him
the whole story. Have you anything against it? I always felt uneasy at
keeping it from him as I did, because I had led him to expect I should
tell him all I discovered, and my silence looked like mystery-making.
Now it is to be cleared up finally, an