"For the Duke of Berwick?" he answered, pausing and gazing at me with his finger on the seal. "Why, you fool, why did you not tell me that before? From whom? From that scum, Ferguson?" "From the Duke of Shrewsbury," I cried, rendered reckless by my rage. "What?" he cried, in a voice of extraordinary surprise. [Illustration: "NOW WE WILL HAVE THAT LETTER, IF YOU PLEASE"] "From the Duke of Shrewsbury," I repeated; thinking that he had not understood me. "My God!" he said, with a deep breath. "And have I caught the fox at last!" "You are more likely to be caught yourself!" I answered, furiously. Nevertheless, his words were a puzzle to me; but his tone of slow growing, almost incredulous triumph told something. Taking very little heed of me, and merely signing to me to follow him, he sprang up the stairs, and opening a door led the way into a back-room bare and miserable, but lighted by the last yellow glow of the western sky. It was possible to read here, and without a moment's hesitation he broke the seal of the letter, and tearing the packet open, read the contents. That the perusal gave him immense satisfaction his face, which in the level light, cast by the window, seemed to gleam with unholy joy, was witness, no less than his movements. Flourishing the letter in uncontrollable excitement he twice strode the floor, muttering unformed sentences. Then he looked at the paper again and his jaw fell. "But it is not his hand!" he cried, staring at it in very plain dismay. And then recovering himself afresh, "No matter," he said. "It is his name, and the veriest fool would have used another hand. Is it yours? Did you write it, blockhead?" "No," I said. "No! But now I think of it--thousand devils, how came you by it? By this--eh?" he rapped out. "This letter? What d----d hocus pocus is here? What have you to do with the Duke of Shrewsbury, that he makes you his messenger?" He bent his brows on me, and I knew that I had never been in greater danger in my life. Yet something of evil came to me in this extremity. Comprehending that if I said I came from Kensington I might expect the worst, I lied to him; yet used the truth where it suited me. "The Duke came to Ferguson's," I said. "To Ferguson's?" he answered, staring at me. "Yes, and bade him get that to the Duke, for his lodging was known and warrants would be out." Smith clapped his hands together softly. "What!" he cried. "Is he in it as deep as that? Oh, the cunning! Oh, the cunning of him! And I to be going to all this trouble, and close on despair at that! And--Ferguson gave you the letter?" "They both did." "That old fox, too! And I was beginning to think him a bygone! Yet he beats us all! he beats us all! Or he would have beaten us if he had not trusted this silly. But I am forgetting. The Duke must be warned--if he has not started. When was this given to you, Mr. Trusty Taylor?" "Two hours ago," I said, sullenly.