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I refused. But he told me to write to him if I were likely to change my mind. Please don’t misunderstand my motive for telling you this. The fact that I know your secret can make no difference to you, for you are the only person who will ever be aware that I know it. Mr. Holmes himself has no suspicion of it—I’m convinced of that. He looks upon Gerald Waring as his true friend, and he loves you now, and I think always will love you devotedly. I’d rather suffer anything myself than add to the troubles he has to bear. And with regard to the story which I suppose you heard from Mrs. Pratt, of my being in his room, it was because I saw him with a revolver in his hand and knew he meant to kill himself. He’d come to the end of everything—facing ruin—and you had left him. He was half mad, I think, with grief and worry. If I hadn’t been with him that night—as innocently as Biddy might have been—you would already have had your freedom. Do you regret that? Would you like to feel that his death might be laid at your door? The man who has loved you so dearly for ten years? Oh, I don’t think you could wish that! I don’t think any one could—however wicked. And I don’t believe you’re wicked. Please, please, Mrs. Holmes, come back to him and to Biddy and Jo. You can’t want to leave them for ever. But I suppose if you get a divorce the Court will give you the custody of the children, or whatever they call it. And I’m not asking this for myself. I shall loathe being dragged into this case, but I believe I can honestly say that if by suffering as much as I know I shall suffer if this case comes on and I have to de-