“As I said,” he went on quietly, “I made up my mind last night to hold this thing over. You can rest assured that, as far as I am concerned, nothing will happen to put a spoke in Edward’s wheel and, if we can count on him, it will be half the battle.” He gave her a few minutes in which to recover herself and then saw her back to her aunt’s house, after which he strolled slowly back to the club. On the way he pondered over Sybil Kean’s words to the girl at Staveley. He could not reconcile them with her evident anxiety when she spoke to him about Leslie. No doubt she had seen that Cynthia was near to the breaking-point and had lied nobly in the hope of reassuring her. And yet that wasn’t like Sybil, as he knew her. She was the last person to kindle a false hope deliberately. His mind was still dwelling on her as he picked up the little pile of letters that awaited him at the club and it was with a shock that he recognized her handwriting on one of them. He opened it eagerly. Inside was a closed envelope, unaddressed, with a covering letter from Sybil herself which ran: “Hatter dear, the flowers were lovely. It was like you to think of them. In a day or two I shall have got rid of the doctor and be able to thank you in person, instead of in this silly note which looks so much more shaky than I really am. I am picking up wonderfully, but it was a close shave this time, Hatter, and it has made me think. Don’t tell Edward, but I have a strong feeling that the next attack will be my last. I want you to do me a favour and put the enclosed among your most private papers. If I should die before John Leslie’s trial is over and if he should be convicted I want you to open it and read it and then show it to Edward. If John Leslie is acquitted or if I am alive at the close of the trial I am trusting you to burn it unread. I expect you think I am mad, and sometimes, lately, I have wondered whether my brain is not going, but you are the only friend I have whose loyalty I know I can utterly depend on. I know I can trust you and that you will do what I ask unquestioningly. Good-by, my dear, till we meet. They won’t let me write any more. Sybil.” Fayre stood staring blankly at the letter and the enclosure; then he crossed to a writing-table and wrote in his small, neat hand across the envelope: “_In the event of my death, to be destroyed unread._” This done, he put it carefully away in his pocket-book with the snapshot Miss Allen had given him. “She knows,” he told himself heavily. “And she has kept the truth from Edward. No wonder the strain of it has almost killed her!” Chapter XXI