He shook his head. Then he went across to where Anita stood, her eyes on him, on me, while she listened to Miss Howe whispering at her shoulder. “Look here, Anita!” he began. “I’m looking,” she said. He checked a moment, puzzled. Then he went on— “That letter—you can’t print it. You’ve no right. It’s not your property.” She waved it aside. “I shall be literary executor. She promised. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s. It’s no good, Kent, it goes into the book. Nothing can alter that. Nothing——” Then she stopped dead. There was that same odd look in her eye as there had been when she watched us—that flicker of curiosity, and behind it the same gleam of inexplicable anger. “Look here——” she said very deliberately—“look _you_ here—what has it got to do with you?” It was not the words, it was the tone. It was shameless. It was as if she had cried aloud her hateful questions—‘Did you love her?’ ‘What was there between you?’ ‘I want to know it all. It tears me not to know.’ But what she said to him, and before he could answer, was— “If, of course—anyone—had any right—could prove any right——” She broke off, watching him closely. But he said nothing. “If,” she said, and poked with her finger, “if that letter—if you recognized it—if that were the rough draft of a letter that had been sent——” He stared down at her. His face was bleak. “You’ll get no copy from me, Anita!” “Oh!” She caught her breath, fierce and wicked as a cat with a bird, yet shrinking as a cat does, supple, ears flat. “I only meant—I said _right_. If anyone—if you could satisfy me—if you have any right——” He said— “I have no right.” “Oh well, then!” She shrugged her shoulders. “But,” he held stubbornly to his purpose, “whoever has a right to it—you can’t print that letter.” She laughed at him. “You’ll see! You’ll see!” “Yes,” he said, “I’ll see.” They held each other’s eyes, angry, angry. I felt how Kent Rehan loathed her. And she—yes, she must have hated him. She was all bitterness and triumph and defiance. Yet all the time I was wanting to catch him by the arm and say—‘Be kind to her. Say something kind and she’ll give in.’ I knew it. He had only to say in that instant—‘Anita, I beg of you——’ and she would have given him the letter. I knew it. I know it. I don’t know how I knew it, but I was sure. But he was a man: of course he saw nothing. He was very angry. He looked big and fine. I wondered that she could stand outfacing him. But she, for answer, picked up the letter, and affected to search through it. “Had I finished? Where was I? Ah, yes—‘An immortal spirit——’” His hand came down heavily and swept the light table aside. “You can’t do it. You shan’t do it. By God you shan’t.” How it happened I couldn’t see. He was too quick. But at one moment she held the letter, and in the next he had it, and was kneeling at the grate, while she cried out— “Kent!” And then—“Lila! Jasper! Stop him!”