"No, you fool!" cried Old Death. "She writes quite like a lady, and in a beautiful hand too! But, after having said all I have told you, she let him know that she shuddered at the idea of being connected with a highwayman: and she begged his pardon for calling him so." "A pleasant letter for Tom to receive!" observed Mrs. Bunce. "Very. And she drops a hint," continued Old Death, "that if he will give up his business, there is a chance of her father forgiving Tom for what is past, and of their being _re-united_—that's the very word." "Do you think they are married, then?" asked the woman. "I should say not," replied Bones; "because she talks of being _connected_ with a highwayman—and that's not a word a wife uses to her husband. Besides, the whole letter didn't look like one written by a wife—but rather a mistress. And then it ends by saying that she hopes to find a letter from him at the post-office in Southampton Row." "Find a letter—when?" asked Mrs. Bunce. "Why, to-day—this evening, I suppose," said Old Death. "She had evidently written _her_ letter _before_ she went to the post-office in Southampton Row, where she _did_ find one from him—because she was reading a note when Jacob first twigged her. And it was singular enough that we were just talking of her at that very identical moment." "Then the letter you read wasn't an answer to the one she received in Southampton Row?" said Mrs. Bunce. "Of course not, stupid!" cried Old Death. "We followed her straight down to Holborn, and she never stopped or went in any where to write an answer. The letter I read was already written—written too in the afternoon, most likely just before she came out to go to Southampton Row. And another reason that made me anxious to get hold of her letter to Tom Rain, was that she didn't post it at the office where she received _his_, but took the trouble to go down to Holborn to put it into another box." [Illustration] "I wonder why she did that?" said Mrs. Bunce. "Oh! most likely to avoid exciting any suspicion or curiosity at the office in Southampton Row. Then there's another thing that puzzles me:—she was with Tom Rain last night—Jacob saw them together, and followed them home to Lock's Fields; and she is away from him to-day—writes to him this afternoon—and hopes to find a letter from him when she goes to Southampton Row this evening. One would think, by this, that they have been in the habit of corresponding together, and that the place in Southampton Row is where he directs his letters to her. So it's pretty clear that they don't live together for good and all. But what perplexes me most is the sermon that she wrote him. It's plain she stole the diamonds, from what Jacob overheard Tom say to her when he gave her the ear-rings last night; and yet she doesn't reproach herself a bit in the letter to him. She only tries to convert Rainford; and, to read that letter, one would think she was as innocent of a theft or such-like thing as a child unborn."