Sellars had no petty jealousy of the other man’s superior powers in the line in which Lane was a master, and he, comparatively speaking, only a promising pupil. But he did occasionally fancy that he could see a point which the master, perhaps through carelessness, had overlooked. He thought he saw one now. “That’s not quite true, is it? He firmly believed in young Croxton’s guilt, believes in it still from what you have told me. But he didn’t prosecute him. Not quite such a hard nut as we think him, perhaps.” But Lane was not to be worsted in argument by his nimble-minded young pupil. “I didn’t say he was out for revenge, only for justice. He satisfied justice by turning him out of the house and ruining his career. And he did that in spite of the fact that he passionately loved the mother.” “Yes, I see your point. Perhaps he may shield his wife in the same way, or rather a different way, keep up the appearance of a happy couple in public, and treat her as a stranger in private. Well, the next important move on the board is the meeting with Miss Buckley—that information you have just got ought to give me a point in the game, anyway.” CHAPTER XVIII MRS. MORRICE’S DRESS When Rupert Morrice received that anonymous letter, which arrived by the last post of the day on which it had been dropped in a City pillar box, and was brought to him in his study, his first impulse was to throw it in the fire. Like all men in prominent positions, whose success in life is bound to raise up enemies, he had in his time received many of these waspish and stinging epistles. But on second thoughts he resolved that he would reflect a little before he finally dismissed it from his mind. It was a very brief epistle, but it contained a most definite suggestion. And something in the exceedingly positive wording of it conveyed the impression that the anonymous writer knew a good deal of what was going on in the financier’s household. “SIR,—You are a man of such scrupulous integrity yourself, that you are apt to believe all those associated with you are possessed of similar high-mindedness. The last thing a prudent man should do is to put a blind trust in those of his own household, for it will be in these that he will most often be bitterly disappointed. I have reason to know that Mrs. Morrice has for a long time past been spending large sums of money in a certain direction, which could not possibly be defrayed out of your allowance to her, generous as it is. I would advise you to make an inspection of the costly jewels you have given her, and satisfy yourself that they have not been tampered with. If my suspicions turn out to be wrong, I shall much regret having disturbed you and suspected an innocent woman. But I think it my duty to tell you what I know. “A WELL-WISHER.”