"We are in deadly peril, both of us--but you more especially. E--knows the truth. Avoid him. He intends to betray you. I met J--in the Bois to-day, and he asked if you were in Paris. I pretended to be ignorant of your very existence, but he told me that E--had explained certain things, and he promised to keep my secret. I send you fifty pounds enclosed. Don't acknowledge it. Burn this letter." The longest, written on thin blue foreign paper, was even more enigmatical. It was dated from her sister's place up in Durham, and read:-- "You are right when you declared last night that I am very fond of Wilfrid Hughes. It is a pity, perhaps, that I did not marry him three years ago. If I had I should have been spared this awful anxiety and double life that I am now forced to lead. You say that I am giddy and heartless, thoughtless and reckless. Yes. I am all that, I admit. And yet I am only like many women who are seeking to forget. Some take morphia, others drink brandy, and I--well, I try and amuse myself as far as my remnant of a conscience will allow me. Ah! when I look back upon my quiet girlhood down at Ryhall I recollect how happy I was, how easily satisfied, how high were my ideals when I loved Wilfrid Hughes. And now? But will you not give me back my freedom? I ask, I beg, I implore of you to give me liberty--and save my life. You have always said that you loved me, therefore you surely will not continue this cruel persecution of a woman who is defenceless and powerless. I feel that your heart is too noble, and that when we meet to-morrow you will release me from my bond. Up to the present I have been able to close the lips of your enemies, yet how have you repaid me? But I do not reproach you. No. I only crave humbly at your feet." The last, written from Ryhall, and dated three days before, was brief but to the point:-- "If you are absolutely determined that I should see you then, I will keep your appointment. Recollect, however, that I have no fear of you. I have kept my mouth closed until to-day, and it will remain closed unless you compel me to open it.--S." The other papers, of which we made methodical examination, were mysterious and puzzling. Upon a sheet of ruled sermon paper was drawn in red ink a geometrical device--the plan of a house we took it to be-- while another piece of paper was covered with long lists of letters, words and phrases in a masculine but almost microscopic hand, together with their cipher equivalents. Was this the cipher used by the dead man to communicate with Sybil? "This will assist us, no doubt," remarked Eric, scrutinising it beneath the light. "Probably she sent him cipher messages from time to time." There was also a man's visiting card, bearing the name,--