"You wrote them!" cried Henrietta.
"I had not the least idea to whom they were addressed. I wrote, as I do the pages of a romance; and the Henrietta to whom they were addressed, was an ideal heroine!"
"Sir George did not write them himself!"
"He rarely read them, only just taking," replied the secretary, "a brief outline, lest he should betray himself in speaking!"
"My God!" murmured Henrietta, "how I have been deceived!"
"I do not ask, I dare not hope, for your forgiveness," continued Walter; "but let me atone, as far as I can, by warning you against Sir George Kingston: he gave these very letters of yours to amuse the idle hours of his mistress!"
Henrietta gasped for breath; but she swallowed down the hysterical emotion, and signed with her hand for Walter to go on.
"I have little more to say; your secret is safe. I will answer for the young actress's
