And that's why I'm troublin' you to-night, Mr.Ford--ez a friend." The master with a desperate effort recovered his voice.

"It is impossible.

The lady who wrote those letters does not bear your name.
More than that," he added with hasty irrelevance, "she is so free that she is about to be married, as you might have read.

You have made a mistake, the handwriting may be like, but it cannot be really your wife's." Uncle Ben shook his head slowly.

"It's her'n--there's no mistake.