. My coming out here to-day was at great risk,
for I am believed to be ill and in bed with a feverish cold. I cannot
venture to repeat this peril, but you shall hear from me. My maid is to
be trusted, and will bring you tidings of me. With to-morrow's post I
hope to learn where Paten is, and when he will be here. You shall learn
both immediately, and be prepared to act on the information. Above all
things, bear in mind that though I hate this man, all my abhorrence of
him is nothing--actually nothing--to my desire to regain my letters.
For them I would forego everything. Had I but these in my possession, I
could wait for vengeance, and wait patiently."

"So that from himself personally you fear nothing?"

"Nothing. He cannot say more of me than is open to all the world to
say--" She stopped, and grew red, for she felt that her impetuosity had
carried her further than she was aware. "Remember once more, then, if
you could buy them, steal them, get them in any way,--I care not how,
that my object is fulfilled,--the day you place them in this hand it is
your own!"

He burst out into some rhapsody of his delight, but checked himself
as suddenly, when he saw that her face had assumed its former look of
preoccupation.

"Plotting again?" asked he, half peevishly.

"I have need to plot," said she, mournfully, as she leaned her head upon
her band; and now there came over her countenance a look of deepest
sorrow. "I grow very weary of all this at times," said she, in a faint
and broken voice; "so weary that I half suspect it were better to throw
the cards down, and say, 'There! I 've lost! What's the stake?' I
believe I could do this. I am convinced I could, if I were certain that
there was one man or one woman on the earth who would give me one word
of pity, or bestow one syllable of compassion for my fall."

"But surely your daughter Clara--"

"Clara is not my daughter; she is nothing to me,--never was, never can
be. We are separated, besides, never to meet again, and I charge you not
to speak of her."

"May I never! if I can see my way at all. It 's out of one mystery into
another. Will you just tell me--"

"Ask me nothing. You have heard from me this day what I have never told
another. But I have confidence in your good faith, and can say, 'If you
rue your bargain, there is yet time to say so,' and you may leave this
as free as when you entered it."

"You never mistook a man more. It's not going back I was thinkin