mind which persistently associated me with a calamity for which I was
in no sense answerable, and with a death which I had risked my life in
trying to avert--so disgusted me, that I was on the point of tearing
the letter, when a consideration suggested itself which warned me to
wait a little before I destroyed it.

This consideration was entirely unconnected with Sir Percival. The
information communicated to me, so far as it concerned him, did little
more than confirm the conclusions at which I had already arrived.

He had committed his offence, as I had supposed him to have committed
it, and the absence of all reference, on Mrs. Catherick's part, to the
duplicate register at Knowlesbury, strengthened my previous conviction
that the existence of the book, and the risk of detection which it
implied, must have been necessarily unknown to Sir Percival. My
interest in the question of the forgery was now at an end, and my only
object in keeping the letter was to make it of some future service in
clearing up the last mystery that still remained to baffle me--the
parentage of Anne Catherick on the father's side. There were one or
two sentences dropped in her mother's narrative, which it might be
useful to refer to again, when matters of more immediate importance
allowed me leisure to search for the missing evidence. I did not
despair of still finding that evidence, and I had lost none of my
anxiety to discover it, for I had lost none of my interest in tracing
the father of the poor creature who now lay at rest in Mrs. Fairlie's
grave.

Accordingly, I sealed up the letter and put it away carefully in my
pocket-book, to be referred to again when the time came.

The next day was my last in Hampshire. When I had appeared again
before the magistrate at Knowlesbury, and when I had attended at the
adjourned inquest, I should be free to return to London by the
afternoon or the evening train.

My first errand in the morning was, as usual, to the post-office. The
letter from Marian was there, but I thought when it was handed to me
that it felt unusually light. I anxiously opened the envelope. There
was nothing inside but a small strip of paper folded in two. The few
blotted hurriedly-written lines which were traced on it contained these
words:

"Come back as soon as you can. I have been obliged to move. Come to
Gower's Walk, Fulham (number five). I will be on the look-out for you.
Don't be alarmed about us, we are both s