He laid the letter down, feeling that he was trembling--feeling almost as if his limbs failed him. He did not speculate as to who had written the letter. Much of it seemed true to him. Sebastian’s love for Adrienne was no delusion of his jealous fancy. Nothing was said against her; he was blamed, and it was hinted that others spoke lightly of her. He was told to test the report, to inquire for himself; the challenge was a fair one. That he owed his situation to Sebastian Mallory’s influence was nothing; such things as that had now lost the slightest power to distress him. That Sebastian was ‘stealing a march’ upon him--that idea was so ludicrous and so pitiable as to make him smile drily in the midst of his own torture. There was no sting in that. If Sebastian chose to woo Adrienne, if she chose to receive his wooing, who should say them nay? He had no such right, at least. He dwelt for a moment on these points, and then came the rush of horror and disgust, the sickening, dreadful part of it. He shook with fury, and with misery too, as he realised that there were people who had watched him and her; that wrong constructions had been put upon their friendship; that people gossiped about her--coupled her name with his. It stung him into madness. There must be something in it. ‘Ask,’ said the writer, ‘ask, and see if I have not written the truth.’ To advise him to go away--to appeal to his manly feeling! It was like a hideous dream, which he could not at first grasp. His heart was sore and aching already; this blow seemed to crush him. His nerves had been strained for weeks past; he saw nothing in its proper light or just proportions. He thrust the letter into his breast-pocket, and, driven by necessity, went out to his work. How he got that work accomplished he could not tell. Adrienne was not there, or he did not think he could have struggled through with it. At noon he took his way home again. Crossing the Townfield, he met Harry Ashworth, who joined him, wishing him good-day, and observing, ‘Myles, lad, you don’t look so well. What ails you?’ ‘Nothing, nothing ails me,’ said Myles; and then there flashed a sudden thought into his mind: that letter--that ‘Ask, and see if I have not written the truth.’ He would put it to the test now; no time like the present. ‘I am telling lies,’ said he; ‘something does ail me. Harry, are you my friend?’ ‘Ay, for sure I am, old lad.’ ‘Then come and prove it. Come with me into our house; I want to show you something.’ They were close at home. Myles led the way, and Harry followed him into the parlour, the front room, now stripped of almost all the furniture and ornaments which had formerly been the pride of Mary’s life. ‘See here!’ said Myles, his eyes filled with a sombre fire, and his lips twitching a little as he pulled out the letter: ‘read this, and tell me, when you’ve done, if you know who’s meant in it.’