He winced at that. Even in his present mood of penitence and help, it was a palpable hit.

"With your a.s.sistance," he said, and that was all.

She pressed her momentary triumph. "So you will a.s.sert," she said....

"But I shall deny it--and there is nothing but your word. It will be suggested to you--by Peggy's counsel, if not by Admaston's--that you wrote the letter which has caused all the bother. You will try to put it on to me----"

He interrupted her quickly. "You will never dare to deny it," he said in a voice of conviction.

"My dear, simple friend," she answered, "why not? I loved George Admaston, as you have said. Do you think I shall sacrifice myself and save you? You can make your mind easy on that score. No, my dear Colling, there is only one way out. To-morrow your counsel will have to say that in the face of the evidence to-day he can contest the case no further. Then you will not go into the witness-box."

"Not go into the witness-box?" he asked.

"Admaston will get his divorce," she went on in a final voice, but one in which a note of conciliation had crept. "You will marry Peggy--I shall marry Admaston--and no one will know about the letters. But if you dare to fight, you will leave the court dishonoured. Peggy will never look at you. You take my advice, Colling, and marry the girl you love, and don't try to interfere with my plans, just when victory is a.s.sured."

The note of conciliation in her voice stung every fibre of decency, every sense of honour in him. He raised his eyebrows in extreme contempt and surprise. "You must have a pretty poor opinion of me," he said.

"The highest, my dear Colling," she replied; "but the situation is just a little too big for you."

"We shall see," he answered. "You have been very frank with me. I gather that you don't deny your authorship of that infamous letter."

Her face, and indeed her whole manner, had by now become almost indifferent. "I am not called upon to deny anything that cannot be proved," she said. "You have heard this afternoon that the experts have entirely failed to identify the writing. How did you manage to deceive them, Colling? Still, I suppose it is not very difficult to trick a handwriting expert."

"Don't be too disrespectful to experts yet, my lady. I have a notion that a report I have just received from an American expert may give you food for thought. After all, if you hadn't been afraid of these experts you wouldn't have written that second letter three days ago."

She glared at him. "Well, what does your Yankee say?" she asked.

"He has proved conclusively that I could not have written the letter."

At that she jumped up from her seat, still keeping herself between the writing-table and him. "What do you mean?" she said.

Collingwood dealt his trump card. "I mean," he said, "that since you have finished writing your own letters, you will have no objection to my writing there for a moment."

His voice was so pregnant with meaning, so fraught with decision, that Alice Attwill slunk away from the table, trembling, as Collingwood seated himself in the writing-chair.

"Writing what?" she asked almost in a whisper.

"A confession----" he said.

"A confession?"

"--Which you will sign. I intend before I leave this room to have from you a signed confession that you wrote that letter."

"You are proposing to make a long stay," she said, slowly and venomously.

Collingwood did not answer her at all. He took a sheet of paper and wrote a few sentences upon it in a firm, bold handwriting.

When he had finished he held it up to her. "Will you read it through?"

he said.

With the utmost carelessness she bent forward over the writing-table.

Her manner was that of one who was reading some casual note.

"I have done so," she said at length.

Collingwood fell into her mood. "Now," he said, "if I had your signature to that, _par exemple_, there would be an end of Admaston _versus_ Admaston and Collingwood, wouldn't there?"

Alice Attwill smiled. "That is obvious enough," she said.

Collingwood took the paper and opened the blotting-book, while Lady Attwill walked towards the fireplace.

She walked away with the same a.s.sumed air of indifference, but, when she heard the heavy leather-and-silver cover fall upon the table, she looked round and watched the man intently.

She saw him blot the confession upon a blank sheet at the beginning of the book, and then with the utmost care and deliberation turn over each separate leaf, scrutinising it like a man who looks at something through a microscope.

Suddenly one page seemed to strike his attention. He smoothed it out, pulled the blotter closer towards him, and took from his pocket photographs of the famous letters in the case.

He put one of the photographs upon a leaf of the blotter and compared them carefully. Then he took a small gla.s.s from his pocket and examined the photograph and the page of the blotter with that.

When he had, apparently, satisfied himself, he looked round with a white, stern face to where the defiant but trembling woman was standing by the fireplace.

There was a silence for a moment. It was broken by Lady Attwill saying, "Can I do anything for you?"

"Yes," Collingwood replied; "you can bring me that looking-gla.s.s from that small table there."

She looked at him without saying a word.

"You don't seem very eager," he said. "But there is an excellent mirror over the fireplace."

At that, as if hypnotised, she went up to the little table by the piano and took up a small Italian mirror framed in ivory and silver.

She gave it to him. "Well," she asked, "have you solved the mystery?"

"Wait!" he replied. He took the mirror in one hand, propping up the blotter with its back towards him, and looking intently into the gla.s.s.

After a moment or two he looked up. "You should be more careful where you blot your letters," he said simply. "You will notice that the impression upon the blotting-paper is not complete--though they obviously tally."

Speechless with terror, she made a sudden s.n.a.t.c.h at the sheet in the blotter which she had already begun to tear out when his entrance disturbed her.

He caught her by the wrist. "No," he said, very quietly and sternly. "I thought you would do that. I saw you trying to do it when I came in just now. Now, look here--look at the photograph and at the representation of your writing in the mirror. Have you any doubt that the impression upon the blotting-paper is the impression made by the blotting of that letter?"

"And if it is," she said, in one last faint effort, "what does that prove? Why should not you have written it and blotted it?"

"Because, my dear Alice," he replied, "I have not been in this house until this afternoon for six months. Listen! To-day the judge dropped a remark about the importance of finding the paper on which this letter was blotted. You alone knew where it was. Very well, in the sequence of events, Pauline found you here--the first moment the room was empty--with a c.o.c.k-and-bull story about your bag. A few minutes later I, having heard this from Pauline, find you in the act of destroying this d.a.m.ning evidence--see, it's half torn out already. Come, the game's up."

Aristocrat as she was, something low, vulgar, and malignantly mocking came out upon Lady Attwill's face as Collingwood said this.

"Is it?" she said. "Do you think I am afraid of you and your game of bluff? You have forgotten the important link in your chain. How do you explain the discrepancy in the writing? That writing is not mine."

"Isn't it?" he asked quietly.