"MY DEAR YOUNG CROESUS: The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. I've no doubt that at the present moment you are thirsting for my blood, and pouring out threats against me; yet I should be glad, for the sake of our old friendship and because I am grateful for certain services you have rendered me, that we might still be friends. You can't have everything in this world; and once upon a time, when probably you didn't know any better, you stole my birthright. At the present moment I have stolen what was never yours. It was a mere girlish infatuation on her part, and one which you should have been wise enough never to take seriously. You wouldn't see that you were in the way, and you forced me to adopt the only course possible. I am convinced of one thing, and that is, that my new life with her will give me just that stimulus which has somehow been wanting in all my efforts. We were married on the day following our flight to London, so that you need not, in your innocence, blush for me or for her. We are going into the country for what is technically known as the honeymoon, and then we return to town and I start seriously to work. I will let you know my address. "Yours sympathetically, "BRIAN CARLAW." He tore the letter up and went about his daily life, determined, if possible, now that the matter was ended, to shut it all out of his mind. Miss Carlaw, with the same kindly object in view, proposed a flight to the Continent, and, believing that it would please her to go, he gladly fell in with the suggestion. They were absent nearly two months. As they travelled with much the same state they had adopted on their former journeyings--putting up at the best hotels and staying in the largest cities--they were easily to be traced. This Comethup was soon to discover, for one night in Rome, after a solitary ramble through the streets, a note was handed him as he entered his hotel; he was informed that it had been left by a gentleman, who would return in half an hour. He tore it open, and discovered that it was written hurriedly in pencil and was signed by Robert Carlaw, that the writer begged for a few moments' conversation with him on a matter of emergency. Comethup hesitated for a moment, and then strolled out into the streets again, lingering about near the entrance of the hotel. He had no desire to meet his aunt, and then arouse her suspicions by leaving her again.