"It has hit him in a tender point, I delighted to see," Miss Forsyth was saying to herself. "Major Reginald Winchester, the mirror of chivalry and honour, to have flirted so egregiously with an inexperienced little fool, as to have brought her to the brink of a brain fever and goodness knows what not: it would be a nice story to tell, if I _could_ tell it, which, alas! I fear I can't. But, after all, it is not the publishing it I care about; it is the delight of knowing I have scored one _against_ him." He caught her eye fixed upon him with something almost diabolical in its malice, and his strange suspicions redoubled. Then came his talk with Robin. "Why did Eva not write to me direct--telegraph--anything?" he said at first, with a touch of impatience, when he had heard what his brother had to tell. "_Telegraphing_ would have done no good. Then she wanted to save you annoyance, to spare your ever hearing of the--mistake--at all, if possible," was the reasonable reply. "Don't you see, if the Miss Wentworth whose note _she_ received had been an elderly spinster, no harm would have been done; at least so Eva thought, though I am not sure that I agree with her," with a touch of grim humour. "I have told her about Imogen," said Rex. "Not by her surname. Eva specially says she had never heard of a Miss Wentworth. That postscript was so extraordinarily unlucky too," he added reflectively. "Angey particularly wanted no one to know the exact date of the operation." "And the confusion between the names--Evangeline and Eveleen," Robin went on. "Upon my word, I never knew anything like it. It is as if malicious imps had been told off to play into that--into Miss Forsyth's hands. If _she_--if Miss Wentworth gets ill, and anything happens to her, I, for one, shall feel as if she had been murdered." Rex could bear no more. "Robin," he exclaimed, "do you want to send _me_ out of my mind? In your--only natural, I allow"--and he threw a quick and searching glance at his brother--"feeling for her, you seem to think _I_ have no feeling at all. Keep to the point. What motive had that woman in doing as she did? and how can she be shown up and punished?" "Spite," answered Robin. "Spite, at _her_, Imogen, or _you_; that is my answer to the first question. And--" "She has no special motive for malevolence at me," interrupted Rex, "and her jealousy of Imogen can scarcely be so deep-seated. Beatrix hates me, in her mad, reckless way, for getting her a scolding, as she would express it; but even she, wild as she is--" "Would have hesitated to open two envelopes, read their contents, and fasten them up again, after changing the letters," said Robin. "Well, yes, it is to be hoped so; at least, I can't help hoping so, considering she's our cousin." "And you are certain, entirely _certain_, that the letters were rightly put in at first?" repeated his brother.