ty you can get of seeing her, and ask yourself if her face does
or does not answer certain plain questions which I am now about to write
down for you. You may depend on my accuracy. I saw the woman unveiled on
more than one occasion, and the last time through an excellent glass.

"1. Is her hair light brown, and (apparently) not very plentiful? 2. Is
her forehead high, narrow, and sloping backward from the brow? 3. Are
her eyebrows very faintly marked, and are her eyes small, and nearer
dark than light--either gray or hazel (I have not seen her close enough
to be certain which)? 4. Is her nose aquiline? 5 Are her lips thin, and
is the upper lip long? 6. Does her complexion look like an originally
fair complexion, which has deteriorated into a dull, sickly paleness? 7
(and lastly). Has she a retreating chin, and is there on the left side
of it a mark of some kind--a mole or a scar, I can't say which?

"I add nothing about her expression, for you may see her under
circumstances which may partially alter it as seen by me. Test her by
her features, which no circumstances can change. If there is a stranger
in the neighborhood, and if her face answers my seven questions, _you
have found the woman_! Go instantly, in that case, to the nearest
lawyer, and pledge my name and credit for whatever expenses may be
incurred in keeping her under inspection night and day. Having done
this, take the speediest means of communicating with me; and whether
my business is finished or not, I will start for Norfolk by the first
train.

"Always your friend, DECIMUS BROCK."

Hardened by the fatalist conviction that now possessed him, Midwinter
read the rector's confession of defeat, from the first line to the last,
without the slightest betrayal either of interest or surprise. The one
part of the letter at which he looked back was the closing part of it.
"I owe much to Mr. Brock's kindness," he thought; "and I shall never see
Mr. Brock again. It is useless and hopeless; but he asks me to do it,
and it shall be done. A moment's look at her will be enough--a moment's
look at her with his letter in my hand--and a line to tell him that the
woman is here!"

Again he stood hesitating at the half-opened door; again the cruel
necessity of writing his farewell to Allan stopped him, and stared him
in the face.

He looked aside doubtingly at the rector's letter. "I will write the two
together," he said. "One may help the other." His face flushed dee