“This is your one and only chance to get back your daughter. Unless you obey these directions exactly and secretly you have no chance at all. At midnight, tonight, take the packet of money, if you have it, and drop it over the cliff into the sea. First you must place it in a light pasteboard box that is too large for it. This will insure its floating until we can pick it up. Now if you have told any one of this and if there is any boat on the sea at that time, we will not carry out our plans, the money will be lost and your daughter will be killed. So, take your choice of acting in good faith or losing your child forever. We are desperately in earnest and this is your one and only chance. If you fear to go to the cliff’s edge alone, you may take a companion but only one who is in your faith and confidence. If you breathe a word to the police we shall know of it, and we will call off all our arrangements. It is up to you.” There was no signature. The paper and typing were like those of the previous letter from the same source, and the tenor of the letter seemed to be an ultimatum. “Don’t think of it for a minute,” urged Granniss. “You are simply throwing away a large sum of money and you cannot possibly get any return. If the thing were genuine, if it were from real kidnappers who really had Betty, they would have given you a sign, a proof that they have her. They would have enclosed a scrap of her handwriting or some such thing. That telegram is of course a fake! This letter proves it!” North looked dubious. “You may be right, Granniss,” he said, “perhaps you are. But,—I can’t help thinking there may be some way to foil these people. Suppose Mrs Varian throws a faked packet over the cliff——” “No,” Granniss declared, “that would do no good.” “Wait a minute,” North went on; “then we could have a swift motor boat hidden in the shadows, and follow the boat that picks it up,—for I have no doubt that they will come for the money in a motor boat.” “Of course they’ll do that,” Rod agreed, “but it will be a boat more powerful than any we have around here——” “Anyway,” broke in Minna, “I won’t play them false. I shall either follow their instructions in good faith, or not do it at all. I’m sure if I try to fool them, they’ll take it out on Betty.” She began to cry, and North said, hastily: “Don’t let me influence you, Mrs Varian. You must do just as you please in the matter. If you feel that the mere chance of getting Betty by such means is sufficient to justify your equal chance of losing all that money,—you must follow your own wishes.” Minna Varian sat for several moments in deep thought. Then she said, quietly: “I’ve made up my mind. I shall not do this thing tonight. I am more influenced by Rodney’s remark about the telegram than anything else. As he says, if these people really had Betty, they would send a note in her writing and not a telegram.”