“Blackmail in each case, though it was never made public. I am speaking to you now in strictest confidence; both are dead, or I should not tell even you. Poor Vera Froissart fell madly in love with a scoundrel, who wronged her and subsequently attempted to blackmail her. Afraid to tell anybody, she let terror of exposure prey upon her mind until in a moment of actual madness she made away with herself. Some time after her death the same scoundrel approached her father, Lord Froissart, told him why his daughter had ended her life, and threatened exposure if Froissart refused to pay. “Froissart paid. He paid again, and then a third time. He was not a man of much backbone, or of strong mentality. When the blackguard to whom he had already paid thousands came to him again for a further sum, Froissart, believing that he must in the end be reduced to beggary through the man’s extortions, went down to Bournemouth and threw himself off the cliff. “The night before he had written a number of letters at his club--the Junior Carlton. One of those letters was addressed to me--I was his medical adviser. In it he told me everything, and directly I had read the letter I burnt it, as he wished me to do. This is the first time I have revealed his secret, and it is the last time I shall speak of it. I have revealed it to you that it may serve as a warning of what may happen if ever you are so unwise as to pay hush money to anybody. Froissart had mentioned the name of his persecutor, and with some trouble I got the man arrested and convicted. He is in penal servitude to-day, and will be for some years.” CHAPTER XXIV. THE TIGHTENING GRIP. Doctor Johnson’s optimism and words of encouragement set Cora’s mind at rest to some extent, but she still felt anxious. She did not expect to be back in England for several weeks, and Johnson had told her that he intended to remain in Jersey about the same length of time. What, she asked herself, would happen meanwhile if she ignored the anonymous letter, as he advised? True, he had pointed out that the writer of the letter could have no desire to ruin her good name, and that she threatened only in order to terrorize her into paying the money. If she did not reply in the _Morning Post_, her persecutor would, he had assured her, write her another letter before taking any action. Indeed, he had declared that she would probably receive several letters before the writer attempted to carry out her threat. “And remember,” he had ended, “the more letters you get, and the more they threaten, the more evidence you possess to help to convict the villainess when she is arrested. Give her as much rope as possible, then strike hard and suddenly.” They had wandered a considerable way along the sea wall, which runs beside the coast, one evening some days later, when Johnson happened to remark: