"I have heaps of reasons--I dare say you'll hear enough about them before long. I'd rather you heard of them than other people heard of them, when I am not here. It is because I am so anxious that the hearing should take place behind my back that I am going. I don't quite know what I owe you, but I believe I'm a little in arrears. You'll find ten pounds on the table; it should more than pay you, and even make up for the week's notice which I have not given. All my possessions that I leave behind--and there are quite a number of decent suits of clothes--are yours. Do as you like with them. If you sell them, and get the price you ought to get, you should not do badly. "Tell everybody what I have told you, and, if you like, show them this letter. You have not been a bad landlady; I don't suppose I shall be better suited where I am going; nor have I been a bad lodger; if you get a better you'll be in luck. "Say good-bye to Mabel. There is a portrait of a kind in the locket which you will find near this envelope. I think I should like her to have it, as one to whom I am indebted for many favours.--Your one-time lodger, "RODNEY ELMORE. "Do you think I shall find it lonely where I am going? I wonder!" The girl, having read this letter to the end, caught up an old-fashioned locket; doubtless the one referred to. Opening it, there looked out at her the young man's face--a miniature, not ill-done. She pressed it to her lips, not once, nor twice, but again and again and again. Then, shutting it, slipped it inside her blouse. She gave another rapid glance about the room, moved hither and thither as if to make sure that there was nothing left which might tell more than need be told; then, passing hastily from the room, went not downstairs to her mother but upstairs to the lodger overhead. At his door she also knocked. Response was instant. "Who's there? Come in!" She went in. Mr. Dale was sitting up in bed She stayed close to the door. "He's gone!" she said. Mr. Dale, although he seemed but recently roused from sleep, seemed to grasp her meaning in a moment. "Gone where?" "He's left this." She tossed the letter she had been reading so dexterously that it fell just before him on the bed. He caught it up and read. "What's it mean?" he asked. She seemed to consider for a moment. "You know as well as I do." "I suppose I do--when you come to think of it. He's a beauty--a shining star!" He stared at the letter. "What does he mean?" "At any rate, he means one thing--he's gone." Mr. Dale leaned back, looking at the girl as if he were endeavouring to find something on her face which should give him a hint what to say next. When he spoke again it was slowly, as if he measured his words; yet bitterly, as if behind them was a meaning which scarcely jumped to the eye.