‘My dear W. H.,’ it began, and then followed a mass of heterogeneous words without sense or meaning, as if they had been taken at random out of some dictionary. It is probable that Margaret had never heard of a cryptogram, but she had heard of communications written in cypher, and it flashed upon her mind at once that she was looking at some letter of that nature. It was bad enough that this abandoned hussey of Drury Lane, who dwelt but a mile away from them, and saw her Willie five days out of six, should nevertheless have the audacity to correspond with him; but that she should write such things as could not bear the light and had to be concealed in cypher was indeed intolerable. Granting her premises, there was certainly ample cause for the indignation that mantled to her very forehead, and the bitterness that took possession of her very soul. As she stood with one hand on the table, for her limbs trembled with the agitation that shook her mind, she heard the front door softly closed, and a hurried footstep in the passage. It was William Henry, who had remembered no doubt—too late—that he had left the letter exposed to view, and had returned to place it in some safer receptacle. The next moment he was face to face with her. CHAPTER XXIX. THE CYPHER. ‘I KNOW what you are come for,’ said Margaret in a broken voice, which had yet no touch of tenderness in it. ‘You are come for this letter.’ She snatched it from the drawer and held it before him. ‘It is no use to lie to me; your face tells me the truth.’ William Henry’s face was indeed white to the lips; his eyes returned her gaze with a confused and frightened stare. He stammered out something, he knew not what, and sank into a chair. ‘What,’ continued the girl, in harsh, pitiless tones, ‘have you nothing to say for yourself? Has your ready tongue no excuse to offer for this new duplicity?’ ‘Have you read the letter?’ he inquired hoarsely. [Illustration: ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE COME FOR. YOU ARE COME FOR THIS LETTER.’] ‘No; how could I?’ The colour rushed back to his cheeks, and into his eyes there came a gleam of hope. ‘No,’ she went on, ‘it is you who shall read it to me. If you decline to do so, I shall conclude that this vile creature has written you what is not fit for anyone, save women like herself, to hear, and your refusal will be the last words that you will ever address to me with my consent, so help me Heaven.’ Mrs. Powell herself, when personating some heroine of the stage, never looked or spoke with greater earnestness of purpose than on this occasion did simple Margaret Slade out of the simplicity of her nature. ‘I will read you the letter, Margaret,’ was William Henry’s quiet reply.