with very good
reason.

I caught the morning train to London, and arrived in Lincoln's Inn
about two o'clock, after lunching early at my club. There Messrs.
Blackett & Snowdon's managing clerk handed me the registered packet
which I had sent off the evening before from the post office in
Monmouth Street, Bath.

With this in my hand I retired to the private office of Mr. Snowdon,
who was away from town, his room being placed at my disposal by the
managing clerk when I told him I had some important papers to examine.

I sat down at the desk, cleared it of the few papers lying there, then
prepared to open my precious parcel.

First I tore off the registered envelope.

Yes, there were the two packets which I had thought so much of in the
hours I lay awake during the night. There was the key; there was the
handkerchief.

I took this latter up and examined it carefully by the light. It was
of the finest cambric, and bore in the corner the letter C.

Then there remained the two packets to examine.

They were both addressed to me in a small, old-fashioned handwriting
which I took to be that of the old lady, poor soul! One was heavy,
felt hard, and contained evidently a box of some sort, the other was
soft and I took it to be composed of papers. I broke the seals--a
C--and opened it. My surmise was correct, it contained several sheets
of thick correspondence paper, covered with writing. It was dated the
day I first met her. When I spread it out this is what I found it to
contain--

"DEAR MR. ANSTRUTHER,--I have little doubt but you consider me merely a
crazy old woman.

"Perhaps I am, Heaven knows I have had enough trouble in my life to
make me so, and the trouble and anxiety I am enduring now is by no
means the lightest I have had to bear. That is why I had the resolve
to trust you, taking a sudden fancy, as I have done before without
regretting it, to a resolute open face.

"I believe that you will carry out what I ask of you to the letter; I
believe you will do it honestly and truly, for the reason that you love
to be honest and true.

"So much for my trust in you. Now for the object of my appealing to
you.

"I am threatened with a great peril, a peril which may cost me my life,
I expect it, I do not fear it. I have held my life in my hands for
years past.

"But there is something in my case which I value more than my life;
this I would preserve at all costs. It is contained in the small box