Theo, I wrote to you ten days ago, but I have had no answer. I am dreadfully worried; I know you are in Birmingham, for I saw your name in a paper before I wrote to you. I have gone through such terrible days waiting for the postcard I asked you to send me. Write, if only to say you don't want to hear again of poor miserable PANSY JARVICE. "I suppose you will now admit that you know who wrote these letters?" asked Major Lane sternly. "Yes--at least I suppose they were written by Mrs. Jarvice." Theodore Carden spoke with a touch of impatience. The question seemed to him to be, on the part of his father's old friend, a piece of useless cruelty. "And can you suggest to whom they were written, if not to yourself?" "No, of course not; I do not doubt that they were written to me," and this time his face was ravaged with a horror and despair to which the other two men had, so far, no clue. "And yet," he added, a touch of surprise in his voice, "I never saw these letters--they never reached me." "But of course you received others?" Major Lane spoke with a certain eagerness; then, as the young man seemed to hesitate, he added hastily: "Nay, nay--say nothing that might incriminate yourself." "But indeed--indeed I have never received a letter from her--that perhaps is why I did not know the handwriting." "Theodore!" cried his father sharply, "think what you are saying! What you've been shown are only copies--surely you understood that? What Lane has just shown you are copies of letters which purport to have been addressed to you, but which were intercepted on their way to the post--is that not so?" and he turned to the Head Constable. "Yes," said Major Lane; then he added, very deliberately. "The originals of these two letters, which were bought for a large sum from Mrs. Jarvice's governess, evidently the woman referred to in the first letter, are now in the hands of the news editor of the _Birmingham Dispatch_. I was shown them as a great favour"--a grim smile distorted, for a moment, the Head Constable's narrow jaw. "I did my best--for your father's sake, Theodore--to frighten these people into giving them up; I even tried to persuade them to hold them over, but it was no good. I was told that no Birmingham paper had ever had such a--'scoop', I believe, was the word used. You and your father are so well known in this city." And again Theodore Carden marvelled at the cruelty of the man. Thomas Carden broke in with a touch of impatience: "But nothing else has been found, my boy! Lane should tell you that the whole theory of your having known Mrs. Jarvice rests on these two letters--which never reached you." Father and son seemed suddenly to have changed places. The old man spoke in a strong, self-confident tone, but the other, his grey face supported on his hands, was staring fixedly into the fire.