"
"It's a lie--a spiteful invention of a cast-off mistress!"
"She never was your mistress!"
"You fool! I suppose she told you that too. Leave the room, you pitiful
green jackass, or I'll have you turned out," and he rang the bell.
"Do you know your own handwriting?" I said, and handed him the letter.
He read a line or two and gasped out that it was a forgery, and rang the
bell again, and looked again behind the clock for his creese. Then he
lit the letter at a candle and threw it in the fireplace, where it
blazed out.
I made no attempt to prevent him.
The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson went to the window and
called out for the police. I rushed to the picture where I had hidden
the creese, and threw it on the table. Then I swung him away from the
window by his coat-tails, and told him to defend himself, pointing to
the creese.
He seized it, and stood on the defensive; the servant had apparently run
down-stairs for assistance.
"Now, then," I said, "down on your knees, you infamous cur, and confess;
it's your only chance."
"Confess what, you fool?"
"That you're a coward and a liar; that you wrote that letter; that Mrs.
Deane was no more your mistress than my mother was!"
There was a sound of people running up-stairs.
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