a little surprising to you that a girl like Hannah should have stopped to describe a man she knew by name?"
I started; it was unnatural surely.
"You believe Mrs. Belden’s story, don’t you?"
"Yes."
"Consider her accurate in her relation of what took place here a year ago?"
"I do."
"Must believe, then, that Hannah, the go-between, was acquainted with Mr. Clavering and with his name?"
"Undoubtedly."
"Then why did n’t she use it? If her intention was, as she here professes, to save Eleanore Leavenworth from the false imputation which had fallen upon her, she would naturally take the most direct method of doing it. This description of a man whose identity she could have at once put beyond a doubt by the mention of his name is the work, not of a poor, ignorant girl, but of some person who, in attempting to play the rôle of one, has signally failed. But that is not all. Mrs. Belden, according to you, maintains that Hannah told her, upon entering the house, that Mary Leavenworth sent her here. But in this document, she declares it to have been the work of Black Mustache."
"I know; but could they not have both been parties to the transaction?"
"Yes," said he; "yet it is always a suspicious circumstance, when there is a discrepancy between the written and spoken declaration of a person. But why do we stand here fooling, when a few words from this Mrs. Belden, you talk so much about, will probably settle the whole matter!"
"A few words from Mrs. Belden," I repeated. "I
