I took it on that and opened it, my hands shaking. But when I read the contents, which were these--"Mr. Robert Ferguson's respects to the Secretary, and he has to-day changed his lodging. He will to-morrow be pleased to supply the bearer's character"--I thought I should have fallen to the ground. Nor was my alarm the less for the reflection which immediately arose in my mind that the note had of necessity been written and despatched before I left Mr. Brome's door; and consequently before I had taken any step towards the execution of my design! Still, what I held was but a piece of paper bearing a message from a man proscribed, who dared not show his face where I stood. A word to the doorkeepers and I might even now go in and lay my information. But the man's omniscience cowed my spirit, terrified me, and broke me down. Assured after this, that whatever I did or wherever I went he would know and be warned in time, and I gain by my information nothing but the name of a gull or a cheat, I turned from the door. Then seeing that the girl waited, "There is no answer," I said. "Will you please to go to the gentleman?" quoth she. My jaw dropped. "God forbid!" I said, beginning to tremble. "I think you had better," said she. And this time there was that in her voice roused doubts in me and made me waver--lest what I had done prove insufficient, and he betray me, though I refrained from informing. Sullenly, therefore, and after a moment's thought, I asked her where he was. "I am not to tell you," she answered. "You can come with me if you please." "Go on," I said. She cast a sharp glance at the group about the office, then turned, and walking rapidly north by Charing Cross led me through St. Martin's Lane and Bedford Bury to Covent Garden. Skirting this, she threaded Hart Street and Red Lion Court, and crossing Drury Lane conducted me into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where she turned sharply to the left and through Ralph Court to the Turnstile. Seeing that she lingered here and from time to time looked back, I fancied that we were near our destination; but starting afresh, she led me along Holborn and through Staple Inn. Presently it struck me that we were near Bride Lane, and I cried "He is in my room?" "Yes," she said gravely, and without explanation. "If he pleases you will find him there." And without more she signed to me to go on, and disappeared herself in the mouth of an alley by Green's Rents. It did please him. When I entered with the air, doubtless, of a whipped hound, I found him sitting on my table swinging his legs and humming an air; and with so devilish a look of malice and triumph on his face as sent my heart into my boots. Notwithstanding, for a while it was his humour not to speak to me but to leer at me askance out of the corner of his eyes, and keep me on tenterhooks, expecting what he would say or do; and this he maintained until he had finished his tune, when with a grin he asked after his friend the Secretary.