“You see,” she said, “nearly a year ago I found out that John was—was associating with this—this woman. I will not tell you how I found out—it is too long a story—but my discovery was accidental. I taxed my brother with his wickedness; but he was so—strange and abrupt—his manner was violent—that I had to leave him with my protest barely voiced. “Afterwards I tried again and again to make him see the folly, the horror of the sin he was committing—but he would never listen. He would not listen to me, to me who had looked after him since he left school! And I was weak—sinfully weak—and I gave up trying to influence him and—and tried to forget what I had learnt. But those letters kept coming and then John would go away, and I—oh! what is the use——” She broke off, covering her face with her hands. Anthony felt a growing pity; a pity irrationally the stronger for his own feeling of sympathy with the dead man in what must have been a sordid enough struggle against colourless Puritanism. She dabbed at the red-rimmed eyes with a handkerchief and struggled on. “There is not much more to tell you except—except that I—stole those letters for the very reason which you used to—to force me to tell you about them. It is wicked of me, but though John did sin, had been living a life of sin, I determined to keep him clean in the eyes of the world; to keep the knowledge of the evil that he did from the sordid newspapers which would delight in making public the sins of the man they are lamenting as a loss to the nation. And he is a loss to the nation. My poor brother—my poor little brother———” She leant her head against the back of her chair and wept, wept hopelessly, bitterly. The tears rolled slowly, unheeded, down the thin cheeks. Anthony felt himself despicable. A great surge of pity—almost of tenderness—swept over him. Yet the thought of the great-bodied, great-hearted, cleanly-sane man who was like to be hanged held him to his work. “Do you know,” he asked, leaning forward, “the name of this woman?” “Yes.” Her tone was drab, hopeless; she seemed broken. “At least, I know that which she goes by.” Anthony waited in some bewilderment. “She is a dancer,” said the woman, “and shameless. They call her Vanda.” “Good God!” Anthony was startled into surprise. He was a fervent admirer, from this side the footlights, of the beautiful Russian. He reflected that politicians were not always unlucky. He got to his feet. The woman started into life. “The letters!” she cried. “Give me the letters!” He handed them to her. “My only stipulation,” he said, “is that they’re not to be destroyed until I give the word.” He looked at her searchingly. “I know that you won’t attempt to be rid of them until then. And please believe, Miss Hoode, that you have my sincere sympathy, and that there will be no idle talk of what we two know.” “Oh, I believe you,” she said wearily. “And now, I suppose you are happy. Though what good you have done Heaven alone knows!”