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260 Remember you are not at liberty to do as he asks. Your husband's words are plain. He orders you to burn the packet."

"How do I know that you are telling me the truth?" she asked abruptly.

"Undo the packet," he suggested. "A glance inside should show you."

For some reason or other she seemed dissatisfied. She pointed towards the Baroness.

"What is she doing here?" she asked.

"She is a friend of the woman who wrote those letters," Wrayson answered. "I want her to see them destroyed."

There was silence for several moments. The girl's fingers closed upon the packet. She turned round and faced them all. She faced them all, but she addressed more particularly Wrayson.

"You are wondering why I hesitate," she said slowly. "Augustus said destroy the packet, and I suppose I ought to do it."

"By God, you sha'n't!" Sydney Barnes broke in fiercely. "Morry didn't know that I should be here to look after things."

She waited until he had finished, but she seemed to take very little, if any, notice of his intervention.

"It isn't," she continued, "that I'm afraid to go back to the bar. I'll have to go to work some where, I suppose, but it isn't that. I want to know," she leaned a little forward,—"I want to know who it is that has robbed me of my husband. I don't care what he was to other people! He was very good to me, and I loved him. I should like to see the person who killed him hanged!"

Wrayson, for a moment, was discomposed.