"Marry Myles Desmond!" replied Ellersby, with a sneer. "A man lying in prison under a charge of murder." "He will be proved innocent of that charge." "By whom?" "'That's my business," retorted Balscombe, with a scowl Ellersby laughed in a most irritating manner. "So that is your first objection," he said lightly. "Pray what is your second?" For answer Balscombe turned to his desk, and unlocking a drawer, took therefrom a bundle of old letters tied with a blue ribbon. "This is my second objection," he said, holding them up. "Perhaps you recognise these letters?" Spencer Ellersby turned pale and half rose from his seat. "Where did you find them?" "In the secret drawer of this desk," replied the baronet. "My wife, thinking I did not know the hiding-place, put them there for safety; but her father told me about the secret drawer when he gave me the desk, and one day I opened it idly, not expecting to find anything, when I found these." Ellersby laughed discordantly. "And what are those wonderful letters?" "You need not pretend ignorance," said the baronet coldly. "These are letters written by you to my wife at Folkestone under her maiden name of Amelia Dicksfall, and which prove that you were her lover long before she met me." "I acknowledge it," said Ellersby insolently. "And what have you to say about it?" "Simply this," replied Balscombe, rising, "that you may thank God that I do not kill you where you sit. But my wife proved to be such a worthless woman she is not fit to be defended, and knowing this, you have the daring to ask me for my ward's hand. Do you think I would give her to you, a scoundrel, a profligate?--never!" "I think you will," said Ellersby coldly, "for the very good and sufficient reason that I can force you to." "How so?" "You know well enough," sneered the other. "If the police ask me who committed the Jermyn Street murder, I can tell them who did it--Rupert Balscombe." "You scoundrel!--do you mean to say I killed my wife?" "I can swear it--and I will, too, if you don't give me your ward!" "It's a cursed lie!" cried the baronet, white with fury; "where are your proofs?" "Open that hiding place, and you'll find them." Sir Rupert gave a stifled cry, and staggered back against the desk, while Ellersby looked at him with a smile of triumph. The three listeners in the other room were standing close to the door, with greedy ears drinking in every word of this strange conversation. The baronet with an effort recovered himself and, turning to the desk, touched the secret spring and took down the carving. There lay the locket, the chain, and the fatal arrow. "There is the locket you wrenched off your wife's neck on that night," said Ellersby, pitilessly, "and there is the poisoned arrow-head with which you committed the crime!" Balscombe took out the objects and looked at them vacantly.