e in a most embarrassing position. I cannot
tell you, Mr. Meredith, exactly in what manner she has done this, but I
can assure you she has."

"Can I see her letter or telegram?" asked T. X.

"I am afraid that is impossible," said the other solemnly; "she begged
me to keep her communication very secret. I have written to my wife and
asked her to come home. I feel the constant strain to which I am being
subjected is more than human can endure."

"I suppose," said T. X. patiently, "it is impossible for you to tell me
to what address you have replied?"

"To no address," answered the other and corrected himself hurriedly;
"that is to say I only received the telegram--the message this morning
and there is no address--to reply to."

"I see," said T. X.

That afternoon he instructed his secretary.

"I want a copy of all the agony advertisements in to-morrow's papers
and in the last editions of the evening papers--have them ready for me
tomorrow morning when I come."

They were waiting for him when he reached the office at nine o'clock
the next day and he went through them carefully. Presently he found the
message he was seeking.

B. M. You place me awkward position. Very thoughtless. Have
received package addressed your mother which have placed in mother's
sitting-room. Cannot understand why you want me to go away week-end
and give servants holiday but have done so. Shall require very full
explanation. Matter gone far enough. Father.

"This," said T. X. exultantly, as he read the advertisement, "is where I
get busy."

CHAPTER XVI

February as a rule is not a month of fogs, but rather a month of
tempestuous gales, of frosts and snowfalls, but the night of February
17th, 19--, was one of calm and mist. It was not the typical London fog
so dreaded by the foreigner, but one of those little patchy mists which
smoke through the streets, now enshrouding and making the nearest object
invisible, now clearing away to the finest diaphanous filament of pale
grey.

Sir William Bartholomew had a house in Portman Place, which is a wide
thoroughfare, filled with solemn edifices of unlovely and forbidding
exterior, but remarkably comfortable within. Shortly before eleven on
the night of February 17th, a taxi drew up at the junction of Sussex
Street and Portman Place, and a girl alighted. The fog at that moment
was denser than usual and she hesitated a moment before she left the
shelter which the cab afforded.

She ga