Wogan gave the porter a crown for his trouble and went forthwith to Mr. Gunning's, whom he had not seen since the occasion of his coming down from Glenshiel. From Mr. Gunning he learned that Kelly had undoubtedly taken the Aberystwith road, since he had left the horse he borrowed at Beaconsfield, and thither had Mr. Gunning sent to fetch it. Kelly's destination was consequently as clear to Wogan as the urgency of his haste, and coming back into London he dropped in at the Cocoa Tree, where he found the story of Lady Oxford and Mr. Kelly a familiar pleasantry. He heard of it again that night at Will's coffeehouse in Covent Garden, and at Burton's in King Street, where Mr. Kelly was very well known. For, besides being close to Kelly's lodging, it was one of the houses to which his letters were directed under cover. From Burton's Wogan came back to Bury Street, and, while smoking a pipe in the parlour before going to bed, he chanced to notice his strongbox. It stood on the scrutoire by the side of Mr. Kelly's big Bible, where Wogan had left it eighteen months before. It was the brother to Mr. Kelly's strong-box, in every particular but one, and that one a stouter lock. Wogan remembered that when he had placed the box on the scrutoire the key was attached to it by a string. Now, however, he noticed that the key was gone. He was sufficiently curious to cross the room and try the lock. But the box would not open; it was securely locked. There were papers too within it, as he found out by shaking it. Kelly, then, was using the box--but for what purpose? His own box served for his few political papers. Any other papers that needed the shelter of a strong box must be love-letters. Here, then, were amorous, not political epistles. Besides, he was in the habit of burning all those which had done their work, and the rest which he needed he carried about in his own dispatch-box. 'Now, I wonder,' said Wogan, tapping the lid, 'I wonder whether a certain letter, signed--shall we say Smilinda?--and summoning my friend to Brampton Bryan, is locked up inside you.' Wogan's guess hit the truth even to the signature, though he was destined to get little satisfaction from this proof of his sagacity. The letter, he later learned, lay in box with not a few others in the same handwriting, and they all ended in the same manner with a request: 'Burn this.' Mr. Kelly would have been honester had he obeyed it, but, like many a man when passion gets hold of him, he could not part with them. Faint whispers breathed, as it seemed, from Heaven, and caught and written loud in my lady's hand, pure diamonds fetched up from the obscure mines of a woman's heart, sure he treasured them up beyond all jewels, and locked them up in Mr. Wogan's despatch-box to his own undoing.