A little packet was on the table; I took it up. The innkeeper's eyes were fixed on me in obvious curiosity and amusement. I was not minded to afford him more entertainment than I need, and bade him begone before I opened the packet. He withdrew reluctantly. Then I unfastened Nell's parcel. It contained ten guineas wrapped in white paper, and on the inside of the paper was written in a most laborious awkward scrawl (I fear the execution of it gave poor Nell much pains), "In pay for your dagger. E.G." It was all of her hand I had ever seen; the brief message seemed to speak a sadness in her. Perhaps I deluded myself; her skill with the pen would not serve her far. She had gone, that was the sum of it, and I was grieved that she had gone in this fashion. With the piece of paper still in my hands, the guineas also still standing in a little pile on the table, I turned to find Barbara Quinton in the doorway of the room. Her air was timid, as though she were not sure of welcome, and something of the night's embarrassment still hung about her. She looked round as though in search for somebody. "I am alone here," said I, answering her glance. "But she? Mistress----?" "She's gone," said I. "I haven't seen her. The innkeeper tells me that she has been gone these two hours. But she has left us the coach and----" I walked to the window and looked out. "Yes, and my horse is there, and her servant with his horse." "But why is she gone? Hasn't she left----?" "She has left ten guineas also," said I, pointing to the pile on the table. "And no reason for her going?" "Unless this be one," I answered, holding out the piece of paper. "I won't read it," said Barbara. "It says only, 'In pay for your dagger.'" "Then it gives no reason." "Why, no, it gives none," said I. "It's very strange," murmured Barbara, looking not at me but past me. Now to me, when I pondered over the matter, it did not seem altogether strange. Yet where lay the need to tell Mistress Barbara why it seemed not altogether strange? Indeed I could not have told it easily, seeing that, look at it how you will, the thing was not easy to set forth to Mistress Barbara. Doubtless it was but a stretch of fancy to see any meaning in Nell's mention of the dagger, save the plain one that lay on the surface; yet had she been given to conceits, she might have used the dagger as a figure for some wound that I had dealt her. "No doubt some business called her," said I rather lamely. "She has shown much consideration in leaving her coach for us." "And the money? Shall you use it?" "What choice have I?" Barbara's glance was on the pile of guineas. I put out my hand, took them up, and stowed them in my purse; as I did this, my eye wandered to the window. Barbara followed my look and my thought also. I had no mind that this new provision for our needs should share the fate of my last guinea. "You needn't have said that!" cried Barbara, flushing; although, as may be seen, I had said nothing.