"It is no extenuation. I OUGHT to have foreseen. Oh, but I will have no pity now," he cried, and as he ended the words abruptly his face changed. He lifted a trembling forefinger and pointed. There came a sudden look of life into his dull and despairing eyes. He was pointing to a side-table on which were piled Mr. Ricardo's letters. "You have not opened them this morning?" he asked. "No. You came while I was still in bed. I have not thought of them till now." Hanaud crossed to the table, and, looking down at the letters, uttered a cry. "There's one, the big envelope," he said, his voice shaking like his hand. "It has a Swiss stamp." He swallowed to moisten his throat. Ricardo sprang across the room and tore open the envelope. There was a long letter enclosed in a handwriting unknown to him. He read aloud the first lines of the letter: "I write what I saw and post it to-night, so that no one may be before me with the news. I will come over to-morrow for the money." A low exclamation from Hanaud interrupted the words. "The signature! Quick!" Ricardo turned to the end of the letter. "Marthe Gobin." "She speaks, then! After all she speaks!" Hanaud whispered in a voice of awe. He ran to the door of the room, opened it suddenly, and, shutting it again, locked it. "Quick! We cannot bring that poor woman back to life; but we may still--" He did not finish his sentence. He took the letter unceremoniously from Ricardo's hand and seated himself at the table. Over his shoulder Mr. Ricardo, too, read Marthe Gobin's letter. It was just the sort of letter, which in Ricardo's view, Marthe Gobin would have written--a long, straggling letter which never kept to the point, which exasperated them one moment by its folly and fired them to excitement the next. It was dated from a small suburb of Geneva, on the western side of the lake, and it ran as follows: "The suburb is but a street close to the lake-side, and a tram runs into the city. It is quite respectable, you understand, monsieur, with a hotel at the end of it, and really some very good houses. But I do not wish to deceive you about the social position of myself or my husband. Our house is on the wrong side of the street--definitely--yes. It is a small house, and we do not see the water from any of the windows because of the better houses opposite. M. Gobin, my husband, who was a clerk in one of the great banks in Geneva, broke down in health in the spring, and for the last three months has been compelled to keep indoors. Of course, money has not been plentiful, and I could not afford a nurse. Consequently I myself have been compelled to nurse him. Monsieur, if you were a woman, you would know what men are when they are ill--how fretful, how difficult. There is not much distraction for the woman who nurses them. So, as I am in the house most of the day, I find what amusement I can in watching the doings of my neighbours. You will not blame me.