nutes."

Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had
done.

"You saw that?" he said. "That's how I identified it as being a
portrait of Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel
now?"

"Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think I
quite catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the
picture?"

"This word--'Helen'--was written on the back. Didn't I tell you her
name was Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan."

Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.

"Now, don't you agree with me," said Villiers, "that in the story I
have told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there
are some very strange points?"

"Yes, Villiers," Clarke muttered, "it is a strange story indeed; a
strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be
able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well,
good-night, Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a
week."

V

THE LETTER OF ADVICE

"Do you know, Austin," said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing
sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, "do you know I
am convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts
is a mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess
to you that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just
seen him."

"You had seen him? Where?"

"He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable
plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,
or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this--he had
been ruined by his wife."

"In what manner?"

"He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,
body and soul. The man is dead now."

"And what has become of his wife?"

"Ah, that's what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner
or later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of
business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received
this extraordinary letter."

Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously.
It ran as follows:--

"MY DEAR VILLIERS