“You see these, don’t you? I take it you haven’t got too much money. They are yours if you let me see the envelope, only the envelope. I don’t want to take your letter,” he added with a cunning that was quite a recent development of his character. “As soon as I’ve seen that you can go out and come back in an hour when Mrs. Morrice will have returned home.” The youth fell into the trap. Slowly he produced from his pocket the letter which he held gingerly between his finger and thumb for the inspection of the superscription on the envelope. Quick as lightning, Morrice snatched at it and put his hand behind his back, throwing at him with his disengaged hand the treasury-notes he had promised. “Now get out of this, my fine fellow, and never dare to come to this house again with such an impudent message. Tell Mrs. Macdonald of Putney, or whoever it may be that sent you, that Mr. Morrice insisted on having that letter, and that it will be given to Mrs. Morrice on her return.” The furtive creature slunk away; after that drastic action he had no more fight in him. Morrice remembered the waiting footman whose impassive countenance did not betray any surprise at this rather extraordinary scene over what seemed a trifle, and turned to his niece with a smile that was decidedly forced. “Never heard of such cheek in my life. Some impudent mendicant, I expect. By gad, they are up to all sorts of dodges nowadays.” He marched back into his own room, and Rosabelle went to hers to think over what this action of her uncle’s meant. It was evident he attached considerable significance to that letter which was only to be delivered into Mrs. Morrice’s hands. What was he going to do with it? Well, it did not much matter. He knew enough now, and in a very short time the bolt would fall, according to what Lane had told her. Morrice had made up his mind what to do with it. Never in his life had he opened correspondence not intended for his perusal; never again, he hoped, would he be forced to resort to such a mean action. But everything was fair now; it was justifiable to meet cunning with cunning, duplicity with corresponding duplicity. He opened that letter with the sure instinct that it would be of help to him, and he was not deceived. There was no address and no signature. Evidently the handwriting was too well known to Mrs. Morrice to require either. It was very brief; but even if he had not known what he already did, it would have revealed to him a great portion of what he had lately learned. “A young man has been to see me, says he is not a professional detective, and doesn’t look like one, but very keen. Wanted to get out of me all about your early life. Of course, he got nothing. The worst is he seems to know something about Archie, knows that I brought him up. Be on your guard; I am afraid trouble is brewing.”