She entreated Hugh to take charge of a sealed packet after her death. There would be no address on the outside—but she begged him, after breaking the seals, to send the packet, unopened, to the person to whom it was addressed on the inside envelope, and never, under any circumstances whatever, to mention her story to anyone. Hugh promised. After all, it was little that she asked; and, as her exhausted brain became confused, she forgot to exact any further promises as to his future conduct in respect to the man who had treated her as unscrupulous men mostly treat loving, generous, and unprotected women. When the nurse, directed by her patient, found the sealed packet and placed it in Hugh Paull’s hands, the dying girl’s false-hearted lover was virtually at his mercy. After a long and fatiguing evening—there had been more casualties in the district than usual—Hugh was leaning out of his bedroom window, smoking and gazing down upon the moonlit quadrangle, when there was a knock at his door. It was a special messenger with this note from Dr. Hildyard:— “Thursday, 9 p.m. “Dear Paull,—Shortly after you left to-day our patient succumbed to syncope of the heart. I have given certificate of death. But, wiring to Dr. Bartlett, at Stainbury, he wires back that he knows nothing of her personally, and has no idea who she is. The theatrical manager, now in Liverpool, was wired to and returned similar reply. The nurse has informed me you have a sealed packet, and can doubtless give us clue to her identity. Messenger will wait for your reply. “Yours always faithfully, “CHAS. HILDYARD.” Hugh conducted the man who had brought the letter to his sitting-room below, lit the gas, opened the safe, and took out the sealed packet. He turned it over with a strange reluctance. He felt he could not open it then and there, with strange eyes watching him; so, giving the man some newspapers to look at, he took it upstairs with him, and by the uncertain light of a flickering candle broke the many seals of the packet which contained the dead girl’s secret. What was it? Was some demon mocking him? There, staring him in the face, were the words—distinctly written on the packet— CAPTAIN RODERICK PYM, _45th Fusiliers_. He mechanically whispered the name to himself as he sank into a chair, staring at the package. “Captain—Roderick—Pym,” he repeated, as a horrified, stunned feeling brought cold sweat upon his forehead. “What—how—when?” His eyes felt as if stiffening in his head. The candle seemed to burn a dull red; the bed, chairs, chest of drawers to tremble and swim in the moonlight.