him,
but he could not go back now. The die was cast.

She looked at him--a long, searching look, her childlike eyes dark
with troubled indecision. At length they cleared slowly and she
smiled, a faint, pathetic smile, which wrung his heart. Then she rose
without a word, and left the room.

It seemed to him that an interminable period of time passed before he
heard her light, returning footsteps descending the stairs. A wild
desire to flee assailed him--to efface himself before her innocent
confidence was betrayed.

Emily Brunell came straight to him, and placed the letter in his
hands.

"There can be nothing in this letter which could harm my father, if
all the world read it," she said simply. "He is good and true; he
has not an enemy on earth. It can be only a private business
communication, at the most. My father's life is an open book; no
discredit could come to him. Yet if there was anything in the cryptic
message written here which others, not knowing him as I do, might
misjudge, I am not afraid that you will. You see, I do believe in
your friendship, Mr. Morrow; I am proving my faith in you."

CHAPTER XII

THE CIPHER

It was a haggard, heavy-eyed young man who presented himself at Henry
Blaine's office, early the next morning, with his report. The
detective made no comment upon his subordinate's changed appearance
and manner, but eyed him keenly as with dogged determination Guy
Morrow told his story through to the end.

"The letter--the cipher letter!" Blaine demanded, curtly, when the
operative paused at length. "You have it with you?"

Morrow drew a deep breath and unconsciously he squared his shoulders.

"No, sir," he responded, his voice significantly steady and
controlled.

"Where is it?"

"I gave it back to her--to Miss Brunell."

"What! Then you solved it?" the detective leaned forward suddenly, the
level gaze from beneath his close-drawn brows seeming to pierce the
younger man's impassivity.

"No, sir. It was a cryptogram, of course--an arrangement of cabalistic
signs instead of letters, but I could make nothing of it. The message,
whatever it is, would take hours of careful study to decipher; and
even then, without the key, one might fail. I have seen nothing quite
like it, in all my experience."

"And you gave it back to her!" Blaine exclaimed, with well-simulated
incredulity. "You actually had the letter in your hands, and
relinquished it? In heaven's name, why?"

"Miss