"Drayton, I'm afraid to believe this true! Tell me how you came upon your evidence, and what degree of reliance may be placed upon it." I told him briefly about the MS., and added the conviction (at which I had arrived during his narrative) that it must have been sent to me by my former friend, Armstrong's executor; and probably comprised the very papers which I had made an ineffectual attempt to secure at the auction sale. "The only lame point about the matter," I added, "is, that the MS. is wholly anonymous. All the names are blanks, and though I have no doubt, now, that they are Armstrong, Burleigh, and Calbot, there is no direct proof of it." My friend's face fell. "There, it may be only a coincidence after all!" "Nonsense! a coincidence indeed! If you have credulity enough to believe in such a 'coincidence' as that, you have certainly mistaken your profession." "If you were a lawyer," returned he, "you would know that there is no limit to the strangeness of coincidences. But let me see the MS." "It is there on the table, at your elbow." Calbot turned and took it up. "How's this--it's wet, soaking wet!" he exclaimed. "Drayton, I'm afraid I must have cracked that old vase of yours. It has been leaking, and the table is flooded." It was too true. The precious water of life had been preserved through so many generations merely for the sake of spoiling the morocco of my study table at last. Vanished were my hopes of earthly immortality. Cautiously lifting the vase, in the hope that somewhat of the precious ichor might yet be saved, the whole bottom fell out. Calbot was sorry, of course, but he had no conception of the extent of the misfortune. He observed that the vase could easily be mended, as if the vase were the chief treasure. "Never mind," said I, rather soberly, after we had sopped up the inestimable elixir, as well as we could, with our handkerchiefs. "I shall die an eternity or two the sooner, and shall have to get my table new covered, that's all. I hope, Calbot, that the good which your visit here has done you, will be a small fraction as great as the loss it has inflicted on me. Well, and how has the MS. come out of the scrape? All washed out, I suppose." With a penitent eye Calbot took it up once more, and ran his eye over the last page. I saw his expression change. He knit his brows--looked up at me with a quick questioning glance--looked back to the page, and finally said: "Oh!" "What?" "It seems you had filled in the blanks before I came?" "With the first four letters of the alphabet. Yes!" "With the names in full!" "What names?" "Why, Drayton, the first thing I looked at was this record of 'ondyinge Hatred,' &c. It contains all the four names--yours as one of the witnesses of Armstrong's signature. They are written out in pale red ink, as plain as can be----"