by Harte, Bret
The young man looked at Slinn with quietly persistent significance.
Mulrady hesitated, he had always revered and recognized a certain social superiority in Don Ramon Alvarado; somehow his son-a young man of half his age, and once a possible son-in-law-appeared to claim that recognition also. He rose, without a word, and preceded Don Caesar up-stairs into the drawing-room. The alien portrait on the wall seemed to evidently take sides with Don Caesar, as against the common intruder, Mulrady.
"I hoped the Senora Mulrady might have saved me this interview," said the young man, stiffly; "or at least have given you some intimation of the reason why I seek it. As you just now proposed my talking to you in the presence of the unfortunate Senor Esslinn himself, it appears she has not."
"Letter?" echoed Mulrady, slowly; "my wife had a letter of Slinn's?"
It needed only this last blow to complete the humiliation that whitened Mulrady's face. But his eye was none the less clear and his voice none the less steady as he turned to Don Caesar.
"Don Caesar Alvarado has found the letter you wrote your wife on the day you made your strike in the tunnel that is now my shaft. He gave the letter to Mrs. Mulrady; but he has kept a copy."
Unheeding the frightened gesture of entreaty from Slinn, equally with the unfeigned astonishment of Don Caesar, who was entirely unprepared for this revelation of Mulrady's and Slinn's confidences, he continued, "He has brought the copy with him. I reckon it would be only square for you to compare it with what you remember of the original."
He took the paper, and, in dead silence, read as follows:-
"Stop!" said Slinn, in a voice that shook the room.
"You-see," he gasped, brokenly, "I was not-crazy!"