"The letter existed," said Mr Bennett, leaning forward and speaking emphatically,--"the letter existed, but it never reached the owner to whom it was addressed. Another person received it from Stephens, and, as I have told you, apparently destroyed it. One or two things must have excited Stephens's suspicions, for he managed to possess himself of a shred or two of the writing. I have them with me." Nobody spoke for a moment. Mr Robert walked to the window and blew his nose violently. Mr Mannering took the tiny witnesses, and fitted them together with his long slender fingers. "Here are four," he said at last, "one with only the word `will,' which is valueless; another may be `proposal' with the first letter and half of the second missing, and the remaining two are, I should say, unmistakably part of the signature. You are right, Bennett. They prove nothing, and yet under the circumstances they prove a great deal. I am heartily pleased." "Who was the rascal?" asked his brother from the window. Mr Bennett pursed up his lips and did not answer until Mr Robert repeated his question, and then he said,-- "That is the most unsatisfactory part of the business, I lament to say. Will you believe that Anthony Miles knew all that I have told you from the first, and would not speak, and that now he has prevented our becoming acquainted with the name of the person?" "Whew! That complicates the matter again. How can Anthony be such a fool!" "I have urged everything in my power," Mr Bennett went on, rather pompously. "His position in regard to my family gave me the right to do so. But he is exceedingly determined. He says the information is not new to himself, and he even requests me to keep complete silence on the subject." "Don't pay any attention to his crotchets, Bennett," said Mr Robert, marching back from the window. "Silence?--Tell everybody, everybody!-- it's the only thing to do. He has proved himself too incapable to be allowed any longer to manage his own affairs. Besides, for Miss Lovell's sake--I'm delighted, more than delighted; that business has been a load on my mind ever since I first heard of it. We'll give a dinner-party, Charles, and ask the whole neighbourhood; I'll write to that dry old Pitt, and insist that he shall come down and eat his words before he has any other dinner. Poor boy, we've treated him shamefully. But, I say, Bennett, what of Stephens? It seems to me that he comes badly enough out of it. What has he got to say for himself, eh?" His kind, ugly face was radiant. Mr Bennett looked up nervously, for the tragedy of the night before had touched him more deeply than he knew himself. "I don't think we had better say anything further about his part of the business, poor fellow," he answered, a little apologetically. "He is dead now, and he did his utmost at the last. Perhaps it's easier to judge than to understand." "Dead! I thought that Anthony Miles had saved him?"