"MY DEAR AGNES,--I have just discovered that there are some people on my track who mean mischief. I have a secret they want to rob me of. I seem to be followed about everywhere I go. What they want is the little packet in this envelope. I'm leaving it with you because I daren't carry it about with me. I've had two narrow escapes already. "Now you'll never read this letter unless anything happens to me. I've made up my mind to sell this packet for what I can get for it, and take you with me out of the country. It'll be a matter of ten thousand quid, and I only wish I had my fingers on it now and was well out of the country. But this is where the rub comes in. If anything happens to me before I can bring this off, I'm hanged if I know what to tell you to do with the packet. It's worth its weight in banknotes to more persons than one, but there's a beastly risk in having anything to do with it. I think you'd better burn it! There's money in it, but I don't see how you could handle it. Burn it, Agnes. It's too risky a business for you! I only hope that in a week or so I shall burn this letter myself, and you and I will be on our way to America. "So long, Nessie, "from your loving husband. "P.S.--By the bye, my real name is Morris Barnes!" There was an instant's pause as Wrayson finished reading. Then there came a long-drawn-out whisper from Sydney Barnes. He was close to the girl, and his eyes were riveted upon the little packet. "Ten--thousand--pounds! Ah! Five thousand each! Give me the packet, sister-in-law!" She stretched out her hand as though to obey. Wrayson checked her. "Remember," he said, "what your husband told you. You were to burn that packet. He was right. Your husband was a blackmailer, Mrs. Barnes, and he paid the penalty of his infamous career with his life. I shall not allow either you or your brother-in-law to follow in his footsteps!" She flashed an indignant glance upon him. "Who are you calling names?" she demanded. "He was my husband and he was good to me!" "I beg your pardon and his," Wrayson said. "I was wrong to use such a word. But I want you to understand that to attempt to make money by the contents of that packet is a crime! Your husband paid the penalty. He knew what he was doing when he commanded you to burn it." She looked towards Sydney Barnes. "What do you say?" she asked. The words leaped from his mouth. He was half beside himself. "I say let us open the packet and look it through ourselves before we decide. What the devil business is it of anybody else's. He was my brother and your husband. These people weren't even his friends. They've no right to poke their noses into our affairs. You tell them so; sister-in-law. Give me the packet. Come away with me somewhere where we can look it through quietly. I'm fair and straight. It shall be halves, I swear. I say, sister-in-law Agnes, you don't want to go back to the refreshment bar, do you?" "No!" she moaned. "No! no!"