“Documentary testimony!” he said, shortly, passing it to her.  “I should have forwarded it entire, instead of transcribing an extract, but for Clara’s fear lest yon should be led thereby to dislike her brother before you had ever seen him.  I take it there is no danger of prejudicing you against him now!”

The letter was from Herbert Dorrance, and began thus: 

“Mr. Aylett: 

“Dear Sir,—­Your favor of the 15th, enclosed in one from my sister, reached me this morning.”

Then followed the expose of Frederic Chilton’s misdeeds, which Winston had transferred to his own epistle to Mabel, as the leading argument in his refusal to sanction her engagement.

Mabel read it through without flinching; then turned over to the first page and put her finger upon a paragraph.

“Who was the lady here mentioned?”

Mr. Aylett shrugged his fine shoulders.

“I have never interested myself to inquire.  Beyond the statement of your friend’s rascality, the story was nothing to me.”

“Herbert!”

The ringing call—­sharp and clear—­checked the pianists in the middle of a bar.

“Step here a moment, if you please!”

The novelty of the imperative tone and the glitter of his wife’s eyes moved Mr. Dorrance to more prompt compliance than he would have adjudged to be dignified and husbandly in the case of another man.

Mabel held out the letter at his approach, still pointing to the passage she had asked her brother to explain.

“To whom does this refer?  Who was the relative whose husband was a naval officer?”

Herbert Dorrance’s constitutional phlegm was a valuable ally in the very contracted quarters into which this question drove him, but his sister was his deliverer.  Affecting forgetfulness of the letter and its contents, he glanced down one page, Mrs. Aylett leaning upon his arm, and reading with him.

“I don’t think you need mind telling the name, here and at this late day, Herbert,” she said, seriously and slowly, “provided Mabel will never repeat the story when it can do harm.  Have you never heard any of us speak of poor Ellen Lester, my mother’s niece, who died several years before your marriage?” accosting her sister-in-law, with a face so devoid of aught resembling cowardly or guilty fears, that Mabel’s brain, tried and shaken, tottered into disbelief at her own wild surmises.

“Not that I remember!”

“Is that so?  Yet it might easily have been.  She accompanied her husband upon his last voyage, and the ship was never heard of again.  Her parents are dead, too, so there are few to cherish her memory.  She was a school-fellow of mine, and Herbert loved her as a sister.”

Mabel was gazing fixedly at her husband’s stolid countenance and averted eyes, and made no rejoinder until the silent intensity of her regards compelled him to look up.  Reading distrust and alarm in these, he shook off his sister’s warning hold.