"Is that so? I'm afraid I can't stop to talk to him just now, but I certainly will take the first chance which offers." "Don't you say anything to him to make him nasty!" A feminine voice was heard calling the young lady's name. "There's mother calling. She'll give me a talking to! Mind, to-morrow at noon; and there's the address upon that piece of paper." "My dear Mabel, I'm making arrangements which will permit of my placing the whole of to-morrow at your service. I promise that you shall have something like a wedding day." When the lady had gone the gentleman poured himself out a cup of coffee with the air of one who was in the enjoyment of an excellent joke. He propped Miss Carmichael's letter up against the coffee-pot and read it through again. The second reading seemed to add to his sense of enjoyment. "Rob a bank? Quite as heinous crimes have been committed for the sake of a woman. I've always had a kind of fancy that you're the type of girl for whom it would be worth one's while to do such things. If I were to ask you to start upon that little trip at which you hint, I wonder what you'd say--if you knew. Hullo! what's this?" He was staring at a sheet of paper which he had taken out of one of the three or four envelopes which were lying on the table. On it were a couple of typewritten lines: "If you take a friend's advice you will get clean away while you have still a chance." He regarded the words as if in doubt as to whether they were intended to convey to him an esoteric meaning. "No signature, no address, no date; the first anonymous communication I ever have been favoured with. Postmark on the envelope, Kew, dispatched from there last night at eight o'clock, which doesn't convey much intelligence to me. So far as I'm aware I have no acquaintance who resides at Kew; and I suppose an anonymous correspondent, if he had his head screwed on, is scarcely likely to reside in the district from which he sends his letter. It's very good of a friend to make a friendly suggestion, but quite what he means I do not know; nor have I the very dimmest notion who the friend may be. Come in!" Someone had tapped at the door. In response to his invitation a young man entered of about his own age; not tall, but sturdily built, with close-cut black hair, small dark eyes, and a somewhat voluminous moustache. There was that in his manner which hinted that he was in a state of some excitement; that, indeed, he was an excitable young man. He came right up to the table, with a billycock hat in one hand and a bamboo cane in the other. He looked at Elmore with what were scarcely friendly eyes. When he spoke it was in what evidently were lowered tones and with a curious, staccato utterance, as if he wished to throw his words into the other's face. "You'll have to excuse my coming in like this, but I'm going out, and I want to speak to you before I do go." "That's very good of you. I believe you are Mr. Dale."