"Here is bad news," said she, and she conned the words over again, and could nowhere pick out the familiar characteristics of Ralph Warriner's handwriting. The words themselves were startling. _Reward the bearer well, and for God's sake do quickly what you can_. But more startling, more significant, than the words was the agitation of the writer's hand. Haste and terror had kept the hand wavering. Here the pencil had paused, yet even when pausing, its point had trembled on the paper, as the blurred dots showed. Miranda imagined that so it had paused and trembled, while someone walked by the writer's back and had but to glance over his shoulder to discover the business he was engaged upon. Then again the pencil had raced on, running the words one into the other, fevered to get the message done. A whole tragedy was indicated in the formation of the letters. Or a malady? Miranda turned eagerly to the letter. The writing wavered up and down. The small letters were clear; the capitals and the long letters, the "f's," the "q's," the "y's," weak, as though the fingers could not control the pencil. Illness might account for the message, and Miranda chose that supposition. "He is lying very ill somewhere," she said. M. Fournier shook his head. "No. I tried to believe that myself at first; but I never did believe it, and I thought and thought and thought--_Tenez_, look!" He drew a piece of blank paper from one pocket, a pencil from another. The paper he spread upon his knee, the pencil he took between his teeth; then he held out his wrists. "Now fasten them together." Miranda uttered a cry. Her face grew very white. "What with?" she asked. "Your belt." She unclasped her belt from her waist and strapped Fournier's wrists together. "Tighter," said he, "tighter. Now see!" With great difficulty and labour he copied out Warriner's message on the blank paper; and while he wrote Miranda saw the sentence wavering up and down, the small letters coming out clear and small, the long strokes and tails straggling. She seized the copy almost before he had finished, and held it side by side with the original. There was a difference, of course, the difference which stamped one man's hand as Warriner's and the other as Fournier's, the difference of fear, but that was the only difference. The method in each case was identical; the same difficulties had produced the same results. "There can be no doubt, _hein?_" asked Fournier, as Miranda unfastened the belt. "How did this come to you?" she returned.