This unconscious incendiary Murella first regarded disdainfully for an instant, and then deliberately spat upon it. She then proceeded to possess herself of the contents of the letter, which was brief, and, regarded as a wholesome irritant for a recent wound, rather ineffectual. She spelled it out laboriously, and it read as follows:— _To the Baroness Von Eulaw, Berlin._ You may have forgotten that several years ago, and through wholly legitimate means, let me say in self-defense, a specimen of art, of inestimable value to me, came into my possession. I have hitherto deemed it no breach of honor to retain it. Finding myself very ill, however, and warned by my physicians of the probable fatal termination of my malady, I esteem it prudent and not less just to return to you the last token of a mutual recognition which I have the faith to believe is among the things that are undying. It is, perhaps, unwillingness to pass the veil which enshrouds the great mystery, without first vindicating myself in your esteem, that impels me to tell you that which I have heretofore thought to keep secret—that your letter, written in February, 1883, was accidentally mislaid in an old desk, and was never opened or perused by me until the day after you became the Baroness Von Eulaw. Always yours sincerely, DAVID MORNING. Murella spread the letter upon the ground and pondered. Plainly it was not a love letter, as she had expected—almost hoped! for she missed the ecstasy and exhilaration of that desire for vengeance which is the stimulus to passion in the breast of any true scion of the Spanish race, and devoid of which life has little zest. It might have been written to his grandmother for all she could gather from its contents, and the thought suggested the duenna, with her cruel eyes and hard, wrinkled mouth, whose duty it was to watch her from all points of the compass. So she folded the letter, and, taking up the picture, again scrutinized it. “Devil! devil! devil!” she broke out, as she smote the pasteboard with her tiny soft fist. Then, folding it away with the letter, she slipped them into her pocket, and, gliding around the ocotilla palings, she entered her apartment through an outer door, where she resealed the missive, and, summoning the messenger Jose, bade him forthwith journey to Tucson, and deposit it in the post office there.