“Oh, yes, she will,” asserted Miss Latimer; “the source of all strength is open to my Lucy, and she will be found ready to do the next thing.” “I know there’s a great deal in that,” Mrs. Grant admitted. “Grief does not kill according to the greatness of itself, or of the love behind it, only according to the weakness of the constitution; but she looks little more than a spirit already.” A postman’s knock came to the door. Tom ran to see what had arrived. He did not come straightway back to the parlour, and when he did, he threw Miss Latimer a significant glance. “I think I’d better run round to the office,” he said, “and let them know what we have heard. And I think I’ll look in also on Mr. Somerset. I’ll be back in good time to see Mrs. Grant to the station, as she is quite determined to go to-night.” By the time Tom reached the office, his principals had departed. Tom did not choose to tell his melancholy news to any of the underlings; but he was only too anxious to disburden himself to Mr. Somerset. That gentleman was deeply moved by the tidings of the _Slains Castle_—so ominous of the true significance of the long silence. Yet he allowed himself to see that there might be some force in Mrs. Grant’s arguments, when Tom repeated them to him. But Tom had more news. He had to show Mr. Somerset what had arrived by post only the minute before he started to visit him—what indeed had been the controlling cause of that visit. It was a letter with a black edge so deep that it scarcely left room for the ill-written, ill-spelled direction— To the Peple at No. — Pellum Street. “It is the same handwriting as was on the envelope of the blank sheet that Mrs. Challoner got before Christmas,” said Tom. “Don’t you remember that envelope was torn up at first, but that I got the pieces out of the waste-paper basket and kept them? Directly I saw this I compared the two; it’s the same handwriting, only this is worse.” Mr. Somerset turned it over and over in his hand. “Did you tell Mrs. Challoner about this?” he asked. “No,” answered Tom emphatically; “I did not. It would have been too cruel to show it to her to-day—I couldn’t. Besides, it is not addressed to her.” “You have done rightly,” said Mr. Somerset; “even if it be nothing but the circular of a mourning warehouse, it is not a thing for her to see to-day. Its coming to-day is a very strange coincidence!” “Is it a mere coincidence?” questioned Tom. “Well, as you say, it is not addressed to Mrs. Challoner. You are one of ‘the peple’ as much as she is. You have a perfect right to open it, and when we see its contents we can the better judge of its significance.” The contents were a sheet of thick paper with heavy black borders, between which, on all four sides, was a long “screed,” which seemed to the most careful scrutiny to be nothing but pot-hooks and hangers, dotted i’s, and crossed t’s, making not one intelligible word among them all!