they come, I shall, of course, take
care. See!"--He must have looked at it.--"One is from you, and to my
friend Peter Hawkins. The other,"--here he caught sight of the
strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into
his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly,--"The other is a vile thing,
an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well!
So it cannot matter to us." And he calmly held letter and envelope in
the flame of the lamp till they were consumed.

Then he went on, "The letter to Hawkins, that I shall, of course send
on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon,
my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover
it again?" He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow
handed me a clean envelope.

I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went
out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I
went over and tried it, and the door was locked.

When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his
coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very
courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been
sleeping, he said, "So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There
is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure of talk tonight,
since there are many labours to me, but you will sleep, I pray."

I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept
without dreaming. Despair has its own calms.

31 May.--This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself
with some papers and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket,
so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a
surprise, again a shock!

Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda,
relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that
might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and
pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made
search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my
clothes.

The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and
rug. I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some
new scheme of villainy . . .

17 June.--This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed
cudgelling my brains, I heard without a crackling of whips and
pounding and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path be