d by a noise at the door. The sunlight was pouring into the
room, the candle had burned down into the socket, and the servant was
waiting outside with a letter which had come for him by the morning's
post.

"I ventured to disturb you, sir," said the man, when Midwinter opened
the door, "because the letter is marked 'Immediate,' and I didn't know
but it might be of some consequence."

Midwinter thanked him, and looked at the letter. It _was_ of some
consequence--the handwriting was Mr. Brock's.

He paused to collect his faculties. The torn sheets of paper on the
floor recalled to him in a moment the position in which he stood. He
locked the door again, in the fear that Allan might rise earlier than
usual and come in to make inquiries. Then--feeling strangely little
interest in anything that the rector could write to him now--he opened
Mr. Brock's letter, and read these lines:

"Tuesday.

"MY DEAR MIDWINTER--It is sometimes best to tell bad news plainly, in
few words. Let me tell mine at once, in one sentence. My precautions
have all been defeated: the woman has escaped me.

"This misfortune--for it is nothing less--happened yesterday (Monday).
Between eleven and twelve in the forenoon of that day, the business
which originally brought me to London obliged me to go to Doctors'
Commons, and to leave my servant Robert to watch the house opposite our
lodging until my return. About an hour and a half after my departure he
observed an empty cab drawn up at the door of the house. Boxes and bags
made their appearance first; they were followed by the woman herself,
in the dress I had first seen her in. Having previously secured a cab,
Robert traced her to the terminus of the North-Western Railway, saw her
pass through the ticket office, kept her in view till she reached the
platform, and there, in the crowd and confusion caused by the starting
of a large mixed train, lost her. I must do him the justice to say that
he at once took the right course in this emergency. Instead of wasting
time in searching for her on the platform, he looked along the line of
carriages; and he positively declares that he failed to see her in any
one of them. He admits, at the same time, that his search (conducted
between two o'clock, when he lost sight of her, and ten minutes past,
when the train started) was, in the confusion of the moment, necessarily
an imperfect one. But this latter circumstance, in my opinion, matters
little. I as firmly di