I said nothing, but stood watching her as she took out half a sheet of notepaper and commenced to print three lines of jumbled capitals and numerals--an advertisement apparently in the cipher which I had taken from the dead unknown. Her action astounded me, but I managed to remain as though interested but ignorant. "Why in this cipher?" I asked, when she handed it to me, requesting me to go to Fleet Street after our midday dinner. "Because--well, because I don't wish it to be read by other people. It is for the eye of one person only." I placed it in my pocket without further comment, and after we had eaten together I went out to do her bidding. While seated in the tram-car in the Old Kent Road I took out the mystic message she had written, and with the key which I had fortunately carried away with me from Bolton Street I deciphered the words she had penned. They read,-- "To Nello.--Will make appointment when safe for us to meet. Note that Eric is in Paris. I still trust you.--S." I sat staring at the paper like a man in a dream. Was Tibbie, the woman I had promised to save and for whose sake I was sacrificing everything, reputation, honour, even my life, actually playing me false? How did she know that Eric was in Paris? Was that really true? And who was Nello to whom she sent that message of trust? CHAPTER NINETEEN. GIVES A MESSAGE TO NELLO. A little after ten o'clock that same evening, in our guise as working people, we walked along the Briggate, in Leeds, and presently found a small eating-house, where Tibbie obtained accommodation for the night. Dressed as we were, Tibbie's trunk at the station, and a small bag in my hand, I was unable to go to any of the larger hotels. Therefore, after supping off a chop and tomatoes, washed down with a tankard of ale, I bade her good-night and went off to find a bed round in Commercial Street. Next day, in the dull grey morning, we walked the busy streets of Leeds--Kirkgate, Bond Street, Albion Street, and the neighbouring thoroughfares--and took counsel with each other. Her advertisement, which I saw printed in that morning's _Telegraph_ puzzled me. Yet I could not admit knowledge of the cipher without also admitting that I was in possession of the key. I showed it to her in the paper, but she only smiled and thanked me, saying,-- "I suppose you suspect that I am communicating with some lover--eh?" "Well, Tibbie," I remarked, in as calm a voice as I could command, "I must admit that I'm much surprised. You seem, somehow, to be misleading me." "Because I am compelled to do so," was her frank, outspoken answer. I longed to ask right out who was the man Nello--brief for Lionel--the man to whom she sent a secret message of trust.