“Thank Heaven for that! I came here the first moment I could to warn you to take no notice of that advertisement. It shows that they don’t know whom the letters are from, or they would have written to you direct. Trust me; the matter is in good hands; those letters shall either be returned to you or destroyed unread, I swear it.” “Thank you, Bertrand. I do trust you. I know it isn’t your fault if they haven’t been destroyed already.” The words rolled a great burden from my heart. I was on the point of murmuring that I hadn’t deserved her trust, but some instinct bade me refrain from the least reference to the past. I believed that the sad old wound was beginning to heal, and that the best chance for both of us was to bury the past in silence, and never to conjure up its ghost by one single word. Already Violet was forgetting her own trouble to think of mine. She went on before I had found anything to say. “But what about yourself? Has anything more been discovered about the murder?” It was necessary for me to tell her what I feared. “We have found what caused Weathered’s death,” I answered. “It was a poison that only Sir Frank Tarleton knew of. He recognized the symptoms from the first, and now he has found out where it was obtained from.” And I briefly related the story of the stolen bottle. Violet looked relieved when she had heard it. “Then he must have stolen the bottle himself. Did he commit suicide, do you think?” “I’m afraid that’s not what Sir Frank thinks. Unless I am mistaken he suspects me of having taken the bottle from Mrs. Baker. His manner towards me has quite changed. He is going to Paris to-night on the track of the letters, but he isn’t taking me with him.” I had alarmed her more than I meant. She uttered a cry of despair. “Bertrand! It isn’t true! Will he have you arrested? Shall you be----” She began to sob. “No, no; it isn’t as bad as that. There’s not going to be any arrest if the police can help it. Any way, I don’t believe Sir Frank would let them arrest me. But I shall have to resign my post, I expect, and I may have to leave the country.” She looked at me through her tears. “That will be almost as bad, won’t it?” It was all I could do to keep from answering, “Not if you come with me.” But I could not take advantage of her like that. “I shall always have my profession,” I said. “Sir Frank has confidence in me as a doctor, I know. But I didn’t mean to distress you like this. I shouldn’t have said anything to you about it, but Sir Frank is coming here to lunch to-day, and I was afraid he might find out something from you.” “Surely you didn’t think that,” she protested. “You don’t think I should betray you. If you had killed that villain it would have been for my sake. And he deserved to be killed.” My heart glowed within me. I spoke out.