n the drive
to speak to me. We both of us passed a remark on it."

Sylvia was staring at him. "Jeffcott, are you sure?" she said.

"Sure as I stand here, Miss Sylvia," he returned. "I couldn't have
made no mistake. Didn't you have it then, missie? I'll swear to
heaven it were there."

"No," Sylvia said. "I didn't have it." She paused a moment; then
very slowly, "The last letter I had from Guy Ranger," she said,
"was more than six weeks ago--the day that the squire brought Madam
to the Manor."

"Lor!" ejaculated old Jeffcott again. "But wherever could they
have got to, Miss Sylvia? Don't Bliss have the sortin' of the
letters?"

"I--don't--know." Sylvia was gazing straight before her with that
in her face which frightened the old man. "Those letters have
been--kept back."

She turned from him with the words, and suddenly she was running,
running swiftly up the path.

Like a young animal released from bondage she darted out of his
sight, and Jeffcott returned to his hedge-trimming with pursed
lips. That last glimpse of Miss Sylvia's face had--to express it
in his own language--given him something of a turn.

It had precisely the same effect upon Sylvia's step-mother a little
later, when the girl burst in upon her as she sat writing letters
in her boudoir.

She looked round at her in amazement, but she had no time to ask
for an explanation, for Sylvia, white to the lips, with eyes of
flame, went straight to the attack. She was in such a whirlwind of
passion as had never before possessed her.

She was panting, yet she spoke with absolute distinctness. "I have
just found out," she said, "how it is that I have had no letters
from Guy during the past six weeks. They have been--stolen."

"Really, Sylvia!" said Mrs. Ingleton. She arose in wrath, but no
wrath had any effect upon Sylvia at that moment. She was girt for
battle--the deadliest battle she had ever known.

"You took them!" she said, pointing an accusing finger full at her
step-mother. "You kept them back! Deny it as much as you like--as
much as you dare! None but you would have stooped to do such a
thing. And it has been done. The letters have been delivered--and
I have not received them. I have suffered--horribly--because of
it. You meant me to suffer!'

"You are wrong, Sylvia! You are wrong!" Shrilly Mrs. Ingleton
broke in upon her, for there was something awful in the girl's
eyes--they had a red-hot look. "Whatever I have