'What does it mean?' asked Bessie again. 'That's just what Mrs. Rudden has come up to me to ask,' said the Admiral. 'This fellow presented it in her shop about a quarter of an hour ago. The good woman smelt a rat. What do you think she did? She looked at it and him, asked him to wait a bit, whipped out at her back door, luckily met the policeman starting on his rounds, bade him have an eye to the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me. That young woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing it--for some absurd scheme. But do you think it is hers, or a swindle?' 'Didn't she say she had given her autograph?' exclaimed Susan. 'And see here,' said Bessie, 'her signature is at the top of the sheet of note-paper--small paper. And as she always writes very large, it would be easy to fill up the rest, changing the first side over.' 'I must take it up to her at once,' said the Admiral. 'Even if it be genuine, she may just as well see that it is a queer thing to have done, and not exactly the way to treat her tenants.' 'It is strange too that this man should have known anything about Mrs. Rudden,' said Mrs. Merrifield. 'Mrs. Rudden says she had a message this morning, when she had come up with her rent and accounts, to say that Miss Arthuret was very much engaged, and would be glad if she would come to-morrow! Could this fellow have been about then?' No one knew, but Bessie breathed the word, 'Was not that young Mytton there?' It was not taken up, for no one liked to pronounce the obvious inference. Besides, the Admiral was in haste, not thinking it well that Mr. Foxholm should be longer kept under surveillance in the shop, among the bread, bacon, cheeses, shoes, and tins of potted meat. He was then called for; and on his loudly exclaiming that he had been very strangely treated, the Admiral quietly told him that Mrs. Rudden had been disturbed at so unusual a way of demanding her rent, and had come for advice on the subject; and to satisfy their minds that all was right, Mr. Foxholm would, no doubt, consent to wait till the young lady could be referred to. Mr. Foxholm did very decidedly object; he said no one had any right to detain him when the lady's signature was plain, and Admiral Merrifield had seen him in her society, and he began an account of the philanthropical purpose for which he said the money had been intended, but he was cut short. 'You must be aware,' said the Admiral, 'that this is not an ordinary way of acting, and whatever be your purpose, Mrs. Rudden must ascertain your authority more fully before paying over so large a sum. I give you your choice, therefore, either of accompanying us to the Gap, or of remaining in Mrs. Rudden's parlour till we return.' The furtive eye glanced about, and the parlour was chosen. Did he know that the policeman stationed himself in the shop outside?