"Surely you could not have written them, did
you, Mr. Hopkins?"

"I? A friend of mine--you showed him in the other day--thought they
would keep my mind occupied, so he brought them here."

"Well, I'm glad he did and that you let me read them. I think the other
nurses would enjoy them. May I not read a few to them?"

"Certainly, take all you want and read all you please; only return them
in order."

"But did your friend say who wrote them? If they concerned you
personally at all, or your friend, Mr. Hosley, of course I should not
want to take such liberties with them. Do they?"

"Why, my friend who brought them to me thought of publishing those
letters," said I, "just before he brought them to me, but I persuaded
him not to. Both the woman and her husband--"

"Why, did he really win her heart with them, and did they get married?"

"Certainly. Letters like that are written to win," I answered, with
quiet satisfaction, even though murder had been the outcome of my art.
"The lady and her husband dead and gone (honesty would have made me say
'or gone'), the letters fell into the possession of my friend, who in a
way deals in such curios. I bought them from him for a song (some songs
are worth one thousand dollars), although he was not over-anxious to
sell them."

"Well, if you bought them from a dealer in letters, then they must have
belonged to strangers. Really, are you fooling? Are you telling me the
truth?"

"I have not, since I have known you, told you a single thing which is
not true. But tell me, why do you doubt my sincerity? Why do you care if
they concern me?" I wondered if I could have smitten her slightly, and
my shoulders began to broaden against the pillow and a sensation of
feeling handsome passed over me, although I had not been to a barber in
weeks.

"Well, it would seem cruel to take your love-letters, you know, Mr.
Hopkins, and read them to the other nurses to laugh over, now wouldn't
it?"

"As you state it, perhaps it would," said I. "But what do you care about
Hosley? Why do you ask if they concern him? Has Miss Tescheron spoken to
you about him?" I was getting suspicious again, for she had refused, on
one excuse or another, to let me see Mr. Marshall. It had flashed on me
several times again that there was a bare chance of Marshall being
Hosley under another name given to him by a person mistaken in
identifying him, or that he was trying to hide from me under an alias so
easy for him to a