Wait! From that time to this I have said nothing
of my suspicion to any living soul. I knew in my own heart that it
took its rise in the inveterate dislike that I have always felt for Mr.
Sweetsir, and I distrusted it accordingly. But I went back to Sharon,
for all that, and put the case into his hands. His investigations
informed me that Mr. Sweetsir owed 'debts of honor' (as gentlemen call
them), incurred through lost bets, to a large number of persons, and
among them a bet of five hundred pounds lost to Mr. Hardyman. Further
inquiries showed that Mr. Hardyman had taken the lead in declaring that
he would post Mr. Sweetsir as a defaulter, and have him turned out of
his clubs, and turned out of the betting-ring. Ruin stared him in the
face if he failed to pay his debt to Mr. Hardyman on the last day left
to him--the day after the note was lost. On that very morning, Lady
Lydiard, speaking to me of her nephew's visit to her, said, 'If I had
given him an opportunity of speaking, Felix would have borrowed money
of me; I saw it in his face.' One moment more, Isabel. I am not only
certain that Mr. Sweetsir took the five-hundred pound note out of the
open letter, I am firmly persuaded that he is the man who told Lord
Rotherfield of the circumstances under which you left Lady Lydiard's
house. Your marriage to Mr. Hardyman might have put you in a position to
detect the theft. You, not I, might, in that case, have discovered from
your husband that the stolen note was the note with which Mr.
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