"I don't know," said Whitaker; "but it was one that gave Charles Stevens little pleasure to send, and the Bulfinches, father and sons, a deal to receive. It came about in a peculiar way," said the dandy. "Late one afternoon Tom Horn said to me that perhaps I'd better wait, as Mr. Stevens thought he'd have need of me. And so I did. The dusk came on; the light filling up the space under the door of your uncle's room showed me he'd lighted the candles, and I could hear him limping up and down the floor as though he couldn't keep still, Tom Horn was the only other person in the place; he had a candle at his elbow and was scratching away at some figures, and every once in so often he'd give me a look and screw up his face and shake his head. So I said to him, 'What is it?' "'He said he'd never go to them,' says Tom. 'I've heard him say it many a time.' "'Go to whom?' says I. "'To the money-brokers,' says Tom. 'To Harmony Court. To Bulfinch's. So he means to send you.' "But I couldn't believe it," said Whitaker, "for what could any one want with a messenger to that rats' nest if it wasn't on a matter of business? And what business could Rufus Stevens' Sons have there?" Whitaker took up his tankard and whipped the ale about in it with a circular motion; then he drank deeply of it. "But in a half-hour, maybe, Charles called me in." Whitaker put the tankard down and held up a hand as though in affirmation. "I never saw a man so deathly-looking; the sweat stood on his face and his eyes looked like the eyes of a very old man. He gave me a sealed paper and told me to take it to Amos Bulfinch at once. I said it was late, that I thought their place of business would be closed. But he laughed,--I never thought to hear a laugh that would chill me," said Whitaker, "but that one did,--and he told me to have no fear; they'd be waiting." "And they were?" "All three of them. The saintly father--whom the devil take!--and the virtuous sons--may they burn together!--sat and smiled and bade me welcome. They opened the sealed paper in an inner room; and afterwards Nathaniel came out with a second paper, also sealed, which he said was for Mr. Charles Stevens, and to whom it was to be delivered without delay. I did deliver it to him in his own place on Ninth Street, and I left him sitting with it unopened, and--shall I say it?--looking like a man broken and unstrung." It was after dark when Anthony left Whitaker and walked up Water Street to Christopher Dent's. There was a light in the rooms above the apothecary's; and there was a moving shadow thrown on the curtains, graceful, youthful, appealing, with soft gestures. Anthony sounded the knocker at the side door, and in a few moments he talked with her father in the same room in which she had talked with Mr. Sparhawk some months before. "You know who I am, so there's no need to go into that," said Anthony. "And I am here because there are matters between us which should be spoken of without delay."