d my way to
Duane Street, or by what suggestion of my diseased brain I was induced
to slip these rings upon the hook attached to Mr. Van Burnam's desk.
Probably the mere utterance of this well-known name into the ears of the
passers-by was enough to obtain for me such directions as I needed, but
however that may be, the result was misapprehension, and the
complications which followed, serious.

"Of the emotion caused in me by the unaccountable discovery of my
connection with this crime I need not speak. The love which I at one
time felt for John Randolph had turned to gall and bitterness, but
enough sense of duty remained in my bruised and broken heart to keep me
from denouncing him to the police, till by a sudden stroke of fate or
Providence, I saw him in the carriage with Miss Althorpe, and realized
that he was not only the man with whom she was upon the point of allying
herself, but that it was to preserve his place in her regard and to
attain the lofty position promised by this union, he had attempted to
murder me, and had murdered another woman only less unfortunate and
miserable than myself.

"It was the last and bitterest blow that could come from his hand; and
though instinct led me to throw myself into the carriage before which I
stood, and thus escape a meeting which I felt I could never survive, I
was determined from that moment not only to save Miss Althorpe from an
alliance with this villain, but to revenge myself upon him in some
never-to-be-forgotten manner.

"That this revenge involved her in a public shame from which her angelic
goodness to me should have saved her, I regret now as deeply as even she
can wish. But the madness that was upon me made me blind to every other
consideration than that of the boundless hatred I bore him; and while I
can look for no forgiveness from her on that account, I still hope the
day will come when she will see that in spite of my momentary disregard
of her feelings, I cherish for her an affection that nothing can efface
or make other than the ruling passion of my life."

XLII.

WITH MISS BUTTERWORTH'S COMPLIMENTS.

They tell me that Mr. Gryce has never been quite the same man since the
clearing up of this mystery; that his confidence in his own powers is
shaken, and that he hints, more often than is agreeable to his
superiors, that when a man has passed his seventy-seventh year it is
time for him to give up active connection with police matters. _I_ do
no