t words cheered me. To my infinite
surprise and relief, he was far from sharing the despondent view which I
took of my position.

"I don't deny," he said, "that there are some serious obstacles in
your way. But I should never have called here before attending to my
professional business in London if Mr. Benjamin's notes had not produced
a very strong impression on my mind. For the first time, as _I_ think,
you really have a prospect of success. For the first time, I feel
justified in offering (under certain restrictions) to help you. That
miserable wretch, in the collapse of his intelligence, has done what he
would never have done in the possession of his sense and his cunning--he
has let us see the first precious glimmerings of the light of truth."

"Are you sure it _is_ the truth?" I asked.

"In two important particulars," he answered, "I know it to be the truth.
Your idea about him is the right one. His memory (as you suppose) was
the least injured of his faculties, and was the last to give way under
the strain of trying to tell that story. I believe his memory to have
been speaking to you (unconsciously to himself) in all that he said from
the moment when the first reference to 'the letter' escaped him to the
end."

"But what does the reference to the letter mean?" I asked. "For my part,
I am entirely in the dark about it."

"So am I," he answered, frankly. "The chief one among the obstacles
which I mentioned just now is the obstacle presented by that same
'letter.' The late Mrs. Eustace must have been connected with it in some
way, or Dexter would never have spoken of it as 'a dagger in his heart';
Dexter would never have coupled her name with the words which describe
the tearing up of the letter and the throwing of it away. I can arrive
with some certainty at this result, and I can get no further. I have no
more idea than you have of who wrote the letter, or of what was
written in it. If we are ever to make that discovery--probably the
most important discovery of all--we must dispatch our first inquiries
a distance of three thousand miles. In plain English, my dear lady, we
must send to America."

This, naturally enough, took me completely by surprise. I waited eagerly
to hear why we were to send to America.

"It rests with you," he proceeded, "when you hear what I have to tell
you, to say whether you will go to the expense of sending a man to New
York, or not. I can find the right man for the purpose; and