"Have you not seen it in the papers? It is in all the papers," he said wearily. "He committed suicide--God forgive me for it!--at Liverpool, at the hotel you have named, and the day after you saw him." And so it was. He had committed some serious forgery--he had always been wild, though his father, slow to see it, had only lately closed his purse to him--and the forged signatures had come into his brother's power. He had cheated his brother before. There had long been bad blood between them, the one being as cold, business-like, and masterful as the other was idle and jealous. "I told him," the elder said to me, shading his eyes with his hand, "that I should let him be prosecuted--that I would not protect or shelter him. The threat nearly drove him mad; and while it was hanging over him, I wrote to disclose the matter to Sir Charles. Gerald thought his last chance lay in recovering this letter unread. The proofs against him destroyed, he might laugh at me. His first attempt failed; then he planned with Barnes' cognisance to get possession of the packet by drugging my father. Barnes' courage deserted him at the last; he called you in, and--you know the rest." "But," I said softly, "your brother did get the letter--at Liverpool." George Ritherdon groaned. "Yes," he said, "he did. But the proofs were not in it. After writing the outside letter I changed my mind and withheld them, explaining my reasons within. He found his plot was in vain; and it was under the shock of this disappointment--the packet lay before him, re-sealed and directed to me--that he--that he did it. Poor Gerald!" "Poor Gerald!" I said. What else remained to be said? It may be a survival of superstition, yet, when I dine in Baker Street now, I take some care to go home by any other route than that which leads through Fitzhardinge Square. JOANNA'S BRACELET JOANNA'S BRACELET On a morning early in the spring of last year, two men stood leaning against the mantelpiece of a room in one of the Government offices. The taller of the two--he who was at home in the room--was a slim, well-dressed man, wearing his hair parted in the middle, and a diamond pin in the sailor knot of his tie. He had his frock-coat open, and his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. The attitude denoted complacency, and the man was complacent. "Well, the funny part of it is," he said lightly, his shoulders pressed against the mantelpiece, "that I am dining at the Burton Smiths' this evening!" "Ah?" his companion answered, looking at him with eyes of envy. "And so you will see her?" "Of course. She is to come to them to-day. But they do not know of our engagement yet, and as she does not want to blurt it out the moment she arrives--why, for this evening, it is a secret. Still I thought I would tell you."