Van Hupfeldt, who seemed to have an uncanny trick of reading her thoughts when they were hostile, explained instantly: "Not all my persuasions could bring Mr. Dibbin from his office to-day. He had some business engagement which was imperative, he said. But I have done the next best thing. Here is a letter from him. He will substantiate its statements in person some later day." He held out a letter. The girl took it mechanically. The envelope bore her name, typed. She broke the seal and began to read; but her mother, resolved to have "no nonsense this time," interrupted, with an unusual sharpness: "Aloud, please!" So Violet read: DEAR MISS MORDAUNT:--For some reason, not explained to me, a gentleman named Van Hupfeldt has asked me to assure you that he is not Johann Strauss, who rented the flat No. 7, Eddystone Mansions, some two years since. Of course, I do that readily. I much regret that I cannot travel to Rigsworth with Mr. Van Hupfeldt to-day; but I do not suppose that the odd request he makes is really so urgent as he would have me believe. Please convey my respectful regards to Mrs. Mordaunt. Yours faithfully, JOHN DIBBIN. Excepting the signature, the letter was typewritten. Violet knew the old agent's scrawling handwriting very well. He had never sent her a typewritten letter before. She laid the document on the table which had borne the parchments of yesterday. "Well? Is that satisfactory?" said Van Hupfeldt. "Quite conclusive," murmured Mrs. Mordaunt. "Who is this?" asked Violet, turning toward the nervous young person on the edge of a chair. "That is Sarah Gissing, poor Gwen's maid." It was not Sarah Gissing; but Jenny, loaned by Miss Ermyn L'Estrange for the day at a stiff figure paid to both--Jenny, schooled for her part and glib enough at it, though her Cockney pertness was momentarily awed by the old-world grandeur of Dale Manor and its two "real" ladies. So Van Hupfeldt was playing with loaded dice; he had discarded the dangerous notion of trying to buy Dibbin for the simpler expedient of a forged letter. The marriage ceremony was now the great coup; let that be an irrevocable fact and he believed he would be able to manage everything. "Ah!" said Violet, with a pathos that might have touched even a calloused heart, "you are Sarah Gissing. You knew my dear sister? You saw her in her last hours? You heard her last words?" "Yes, miss," sniveled Jenny, "an' this gentleman ain't Mr. Strauss, though he do resemble him a bit."