it seemed she had succeeded: the inspector closed his notebook with something like a sigh, as though all his ingenious theories had come to nothing; and, with an assurance that no effort should be wanting upon his part, nor on that of his assistants, to prosecute the search after her husband, and dispel the mystery by which his disappearance was surrounded, he respectfully took his leave.

The relief which Maggie experienced upon the withdrawal of the police official was great and twofold. The examination was over, which had cost her so much to undergo, and, upon the whole, it had ended satisfactorily. With the instinct of a bird whose young are threatened by some roving schoolboy, and who pretends, by flitting from bough to bough on some distant tree, with pitiful cries, that her nest is elsewhere than it is, she had contrived to throw this human beagle off the scent; and she was now at liberty, alone, and free from prying eyes, to put into effect what the inspector had taken for granted had been already done, the examination of her husband's desk. There it stood, just as he had left it not forty-eight hours ago, with the key in it, and a bunch of keys depending from it, among them that of the house and of the office; a fact which itself had seemed to indicate to her that he had done with both, and would never cross the threshold of either again. Her trembling touch had already discovered it was locked; but that was no sign that John had meant it to remain unopened, a very Bluebeard's chamber, from herself, but was more likely a slight precaution against meddling curiosity. Still she hesitated to turn the key. Her husband, it was true, except during this last unhappy week, had had no secrets from her, so far as she knew; but, by common consent, they had kept silence, save on those occasions with which we are acquainted, upon one subject, very near to both their hearts, and it was more than probable there lay within that desk some painful records with respect to it. There would, without doubt, be

letters of Richard's-some, perhaps, breathing anything but brotherly love; memoranda of his debts, and, generally, evidences of his bad behaviour. In that supreme moment of anxiety and suspense, it curiously flashed upon her, that her father's invention of the "terminable ink" would, in such a case, be an inestimable blessing. If all the letters that have been written from brother to brother in scorn and hatred since the world began could have been so indited-if written words did not remain to add fuel to the flame of wrath whenever the eye reverted to them, but became a harmless blank, what illblood would have been spared to poor humanity! It would be a dreadful thing to come upon some insolent, defiant, ungrateful letter of poor misled Richard's, now. Thus she pictured the matter to herself, as she stood with one hand upon the lid, and the other on the key; but in reality her indecision was owing to the more substantial fear that she might find the very thing she sought. The pain of a diseased limb is hard to bear, and, in the end, unless removed, must needs become intolerable; but when the moment of amputation comes, the patient shrinks from it, though he knows the thing must be, and will eventually bring relief; and distressing as Maggie's present condition was, it seemed, for the moment, preferable to a revelation which might be the confirmation of all her fears. And yet, how could that be, when whatever she found must needs have been written before her husband left his home! Indeed, she now remembered, that on that last unhappy night she had heard him unlock his desk-perhaps, nay, what was more likely to set down his reasons for that very abandonment of her and home which was about to ensue. Here she opened the desk, with woman's haste, and threw back the lid; and the first thing her eye lit upon was a sealed paper, directed in a handwriting that, but for the terms of the address, she would not have recognised. Her husband's band was singularly clear and clerkly, whereas each word lying

before her now was ragged and ill-formed as her father's writing had been wont to be when he began to recover from his paralysis. Yet there was no doubt whose fingers had penned them. "For my wife: to be opened when I am dead, or when she shall have lost faith in me.”

CHAPTER XXX.

AN EAVESDROPPER.

MAGGIE held in her hand, she had no doubt, the revelation of the mystery which had oppressed her for so many hours, and could have resolved it by the breaking of a seal. But the idea of doing so never entered her mind. Her husband's prohibition would have been all-sufficient for her, however expressed; but couched as it was in such touching terms, she would not have disobeyed it for an empire. She felt that she never could disobey it, whatever happened; that so long as she had reason to believe he was alive, that packet would be inviolable; for as to the alternative, "Or when she shall have lost faith in me," that was a supposition that her mind refused to entertain. There had been a time when she had not loved her husband as she did now, but there had been no time when she had not put faith in him. He was well aware of that himself, and hence this exceptional permission must needs have reference to some trial of her confidence in him yet to come. Whatever it might be, it would find her ready for it: deaf to every malicious tongue, blind to every act of his, which those who knew him less well might set down to an unworthy motive; or, still better, both hearing and seeing, she would have a justification for him, satisfactory to her own heart at least, let the world say what it would. What must he have suffered, what must he be suffering now, unconsoled, unsympathised with, alone! How out of all proportion was

his punishment to his offence, since it could not be that she had imagined. What he had written in this paper could never be a confession that he was going forth to slay his enemy. No; a thousand times no! Whatever Dennis Blake might have done, or threatened to do, the idea that John should make up his mind beforehand to put him to death"of malice aforethought," as the law sternly designates it— was too terrible and monstrous; and, moreover, he had passed his word that he would take no such vengeance. The enigma of his disappearance, however, remained only the more inexplicable. What could have happened-short of the crime which it was evident he had not committed to change him in one short night from young to old, and to drive him from his wife and home for ever?

Sitting by the fire, plunged in gloomy but vague conjecture, and holding in her hand what would doubtless have resolved all her fears at a single glance, but which not iron and steel could have made more inviolable to her, she suddenly became aware that the French window opening on the lawn had become darkened behind her; that somebody was standing there, and in all probability watching her through its pane. Depressed and anxious as she was, she had not lost her presence of mind; on the contrary, the sense of the necessity of being mistress of herself had strung her nerves to meet almost any shock. If she was being watched, there must be a reason for it; something was sought to be learnt, perhaps, from her air and manner, when she was alone, and fancied herself unobserved. The inspector might not have been so satisfied with his interview as he had pretended to be, and might have taken this means-by no means unnatural to one of his calling-to judge for himself of the reality of the calmness and self-possession she had assumed before him. A shudder ran through her at the thought that if he had taken such a step ten minutes before, immediately when, as she