ul days in the garden at Chichester? I think of them always,
always, and compare that sweet peace of the past with my own terrible
sufferings of to-day. Ah, how I wish I might see you once again; how
that I might feel your hand upon my brow, and hear your words of hope
and encouragement! But happiness is now debarred from me, and I am only
sinking to the grave under this slow torture of body and of soul.

"This will pass through many hands before it reaches the post. If,
however, it ever does get despatched and you receive it, will you do me
one last favor--a favor to an unfortunate girl who is friendless and
helpless, and who will no longer trouble the world? It is this: Take
this letter to London, and call upon Mr. Martin Woodroffe at 98 Cork
Street, Piccadilly. Show him my letter, and tell him from me that
through it all I have kept my promise, and that the secret is still
safe. He will understand--and also know why I cannot write this with my
own hand. If he is abroad, keep it until he returns.

"It is all I ask of you, Lydia, and I know that if this reaches you, you
will not refuse me. You have been my only friend and confidante, but I
now bid you farewell, for the unknown beckons me, and from the grave I
cannot write. Again farewell, and for ever.

"Your loving and affectionate friend,

"Elma."

"A very strange letter, is it not?" remarked the girl at my side. "I
can't make it out. You see there is no address, but the postmark is
Russian. She is evidently in Russia."

"In Finland," I said, examining the stamp and making out the post town
to be Abo. "But have you been to London and executed this strange
commission?"

"No. We are going up next week. I intend to call upon this person named
Woodroffe."

I made no remark. He was, I knew, abroad, but I was glad at having
obtained two very important clues: first, the address of the mysterious
yachtsman, Woodroffe, alias Hornby, and, secondly, ascertaining that the
young girl I sought was somewhere in the vicinity of the town of Abo,
the Finnish port on the Baltic.

"Poor Elma, you see, speaks in her letter of some secret, Mr. Gregg," my
companion said. "She says she wishes this Mr. Woodroffe, whoever he is,
to know that she has kept her promise and has not divulged it. This only
bears out what I have all along suspected."

"What are your suspicions?"

"Well, from her deep, thoughtful manner, and from certain remarks she at
times made to me, I believe that E