"I very much regret that you should have thus misunderstood me. I thought when we met at Windermere you were quite of my opinion. You, however, appear to have grown tired after the five months of our engagement, and your love for me has suddenly cooled; therefore our paths in life must in future lie apart. You have at least told me the truth honestly and straightforwardly. I, of course, believed that your declarations were true, and that you really loved me truly, but alas! it is evidently not so. I can only suffer in silence. Good-bye for ever. We shall never, never meet again. But I tell you, Wilford, that I bear you no malice, and that my prayers will ever be for your welfare and your happiness. Perhaps sometimes you will give a passing thought to the sorrowful, heart-broken woman who still loves you. "Mabel Anson." What could this mean? It spoke of our engagement for five months! I had no knowledge whatever of ever having declared the secret of my love, much less becoming her affianced husband. Was it possible that in the first few months of my unconscious life I had met her and told her of my affection, of how I worshipped her with all the strength of my being? As I sat there with the carefully preserved letter in my hand there arose before my eyes a vision of her calm, fair face, bending over the piano, her handsome profile illumined by the candles on either side, the single diamond suspended by its invisible chain, gleaming at her throat like a giant's eye. The impression I had obtained of her on that night at The Boltons still remained indelibly with me. Yes, her beauty was superb, her sweetness unsurpassed by that of any other woman I had ever met. Among the other private papers preserved within the wallet were four scraps of notepaper with typewriting upon them. All bore the same signature--that of the strange name "Avel." All of them made appointments. One asked me to meet the writer in the writing-room of the _Hotel Victoria_ in London, another made an appointment to meet me "on the Promenade at Eastbourne opposite the Wish Tower"; a third suggested my office at Winchester House as a meeting-place, and the fourth gave a rendezvous on the departure platform at King's Cross Station. I fell to wondering whether I had kept any of these engagements. The most recent of the letters was dated nearly two years ago. But the afternoon was wearing on, therefore I placed the puzzling communications in my pocket and ascended to my room in order to rest, and thus carry out the feint of attending to old Britten's directions. The dressing-bell awakened me, but, confident in the knowledge that I should remain undisturbed, I removed the bandages from my head, bathed the wound, and applied some plaster in the place of the handkerchief. Then, with my hat on, my injury was concealed.