Page:William Le Queux - The Temptress.djvu/75

60 Suddenly the words of Jack Egerton, when he had pointed Valérie out at Eastbourne, recurred to him.

"The less of her sort the better," he mused, gazing out of the window abstractedly. "I never asked Jack what he meant by that mysterious allusion. Perhaps, however, he didn't mean it seriously, and only said it in chaff."

He remained silent for some moments.

"Why," he suddenly exclaimed, "why should I believe malignant stories, when there is nothing to prove them? These letters are certainly strange, yet, after all, they may relate to some purely matter-of-fact affair."

Truth to tell, he felt half inclined to believe there had been a deeper meaning in the artist's words than he imagined, and was stupefied in the agony of mental struggle. He stood rigid and confounded, gazing in turn at the letters and photograph, utterly unable to account for the curious and secret correspondence that had evidently taken place between his late brother and the woman who had promised to become his wife.

At last he opened the remaining letter, and was astonished to find it merely a blank sheet of notepaper, inside which was carefully preserved a scrap of half-burned paper about two inches square. Apparently it was a portion of a letter which, after being torn across, had been thrown into the fire. By some means the edges had been burned, the remainder being severely scorched.

It was written on one side of the paper, and the words, which were in French, and in a disguised hand, revealed a fact which added interest to the discovery. Necessarily few, they were very pointed, and translated they read: