ight of her standing
there bringing back a reminder of his duty.

"He was a sayin' as how likely yer wanted to go to bed, Miss."

"Not now; I'll wait until Mr. Westcott comes down. What is that paper
in your hand? Is that the letter Miss La Rue left?"

He held it up in surprise, gazing at it through his glasses.

"Why, Lord bless me--it is, isn't it? Must have took it out o' ther
drawer an' never thought of the darned thing agin."

"May I see it?"

"Sure; 'tain't o' no consequence ter me; I reckon the woman sorter
packed in a hurry, and this got lost. The Chink found it under the
bed."

She took it in her hand, and crossed the room, finding a seat beneath
one of the bracket-lamps, but with her face turned toward the hall. It
was just a single sheet of folded paper, not enclosed in an envelope,
and had been torn across, so that the two parts barely held together.
She stared at it for a moment, almost motionless, her fingers nervously
moving up and down the crease, as though she dreaded to learn what was
within. She felt that here was the key which was to unlock the secret
of this strange crime. Whoever the man upstairs might prove to be--the
real Cavendish or some impostor--this paper she held in her hands was
destined to be a link in the chain. She unfolded it slowly and her
eyes traced the written words within. It was a hasty scrawl, written
on the cheap paper of some obscure hotel in Jersey City, extremely
difficult to decipher, the hand of the man who wrote exhibiting plainly
the excitement under which he laboured.

It was a message of warning, he was leaving New York, and would sail
that evening for some place in South America, where he did not say.
Love only caused him to tell her what had occurred. A strange word
puzzled her, and before she could decipher it, voices broke the
silence, followed by steps on the stairs. She glanced up quickly; it
was Westcott returning, accompanied by a tall, rather slender man with
a closely-trimmed beard. The two crossed the room, and she met them
standing, the opened letter still in her hand.

"Miss Donovan, this is Frederick Cavendish--the real Frederick
Cavendish. I have told him something of the trouble he has been to us
all."

The real Frederick Cavendish smiled down into her eyes, while he held
her fingers tightly clasped in his own. She believed in him, liked him
instantly.

"A trouble which I regret very much," he said humbly. "Westcott has
tol