Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band
of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was
turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton,
suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of
blackmail.
He confessed that he "pretended" to know a lot. What did he pretend to
know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak--if only she would
reveal to me the truth.
Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written
that letter, had fallen by her hand?
The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still
unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave,
just as I had been sent--because I had dared to come between the
conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello--whoever the
fellow was.
Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious "R.W.,"
without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself.
I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise
found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I
opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad
ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines.
It was in the scoundrel's handwriting--the same calligraphy as that upon
the envelope.
I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon
the seat utterly bewildered.
What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The
problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written
lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before.
Was Sybil, after all, playing me false?
I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home
to me.
Yes--I had trusted her; I had believed her.
She had fooled me!