"Dear Denton,--I saw you in the smoking-room of the Midland at Bradford, but for reasons which you know, I could not speak. I went out, and on my return you had gone. I searched, but could not find you. I wanted to tell you my opinion about Ellice and his friend. They are not playing a straight game. I know their intentions. They mean to give us away if they can. Sybil fears me, and will pay. I pretend to know a lot. Meet me in Chichester at the Dolphin next Sunday. I shall put up there, because I intend that she shall see me. Come and help me, for I shall have a good thing on, in which you can share. She can always raise money from her sister or her mother, so don't fail to keep the appointment. Ellice has already touched a good deal of the Scarcliffs' money from young Jack, and I now mean myself to have a bit. She'll do anything to avoid scandal. It's a soft thing--so come.--Yours,-- "R.W." The dead man was, as I had suspected, one of the gang, and he was a blackmailer. He had compelled her to meet him and had made demands which she had resisted. Yes--the letter was the letter of a barefaced scoundrel. I clenched my hands and set my teeth. Surely I had done right to endeavour to protect Sybil from such a band of ruffians. Once I had pitied the dead man, but now my sympathy was turned to hatred. He had written this letter to his friend Denton, suggesting that the latter should assist him in his nefarious scheme of blackmail. He confessed that he "pretended" to know a lot. What did he pretend to know, I wondered? Ah! if only Sybil would speak--if only she would reveal to me the truth. Yet, after all, how could she when that man, the fellow who had written that letter, had fallen by her hand? The letter at least showed that her enemies had been and were still unscrupulous. Winsloe, even now, was ready to send her to her grave, just as I had been sent--because I had dared to come between the conspirators and their victim. And yet she trusted Nello--whoever the fellow was. Who was the man Denton, I wondered? A friend of the mysterious "R.W.," without a doubt, and a malefactor like himself. I placed my finger within the linen-lined envelope, and to my surprise found a second piece of thin blue paper folded in half. Eagerly I opened it and saw that it was a letter written in plain English, in bad ink, and so faint that with difficulty I read the lines. It was in the scoundrel's handwriting--the same calligraphy as that upon the envelope. I read the lines, and so extraordinary were they that I sat back upon the seat utterly bewildered. What was written there complicated the affair more than ever. The problem admitted of no solution, for the mystery was by those written lines rendered deeper and more inscrutable than before. Was Sybil, after all, playing me false? I held my breath as the grave peril of the situation came vividly home to me. Yes--I had trusted her; I had believed her. She had fooled me!