and thinking, even so much as the vestige of
another guide to go by. "5 along" —where
could I count five along the room, in any part
of it ?

Not on the paper. The pattern there was
pillars of trellis-work and flowers, enclosing
a plain green ground—only four pillars along
the wall and only two across. The furniture?
There were not five chairs, or five
separate pieces of any furniture in the room
altogether. The fringes that hung from the
cornice of the bed? Plenty of them, at any
rate! Up I jumped on the counterpane,
with my penknife in my hand. Every way that
"5 along " and " 4 across " could be reckoned
on those unlucky fringes, I reckoned on them
probed with my penknife—scratched with
my nails—crunched with my fingers. No use;
not a sign of a letter; and the time was
getting on—oh, Lord! how the time did get
on in Mr. Davager's room that morning.

I jumped down from the bed, so desperate
at my ill-luck that I hardly cared whether
anybody heard me or not. Quite a little
cloud of dust rose at my feet as they thumped
on the carpet. " Hallo! " thought I; " my
friend the head chambermaid takes it easy
here. Nice state for a carpet to be in, in one
of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms."
Carpet! I had been jumping up on the bed,
and staring up at the walls, but I had never
so much as given a glance down at the carpet.
Think of me pretending to be a lawyer,
and not knowing how to look low enough!

The carpet! It had been a stout article
in its time; had evidently begun in a draw-
ing-room; then descended to a coffee-room;
then gone upstairs altogether to a bedroom.
The ground was brown, and the pattern was
bunches of leaves and roses speckled over
the ground at regular distances. I reckoned
up the bunches. Ten along the room—eight
across it. When I had stepped out five one way
and four the other, and was down on my
knees on the centre bunch, as true as I sit on
this bench, I could hear my own heart beating
so loud that it quite frightened me.

I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and
I felt all over it with the ends of my fingers;
and nothing came of that. Then I scraped
it over slowly and gently with my nails. My
second finger-nail stuck a little at one place.
I parted the pile of the carpet over that
place, and saw a thin slit, which had been
hidden by the pile being smoothed over it—
a slit about half an inch long, with a little
end of brown thread, exactly the colour of
the carpet-ground, sticking out about a
quarter of an inch from the middle of it.
Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I
heard a footstep outside the door.

It was only the head chambermaid.
"Havn't you done yet ? " she whispers.

"Give me two minutes," says I; " and
don't let anybody come near the door—whatever
you do, don't let anybody startle me
again by coming near the door."

I took a little pull at the thread, and heard
something rustle. I took a longer pull, and
out came a piece of paper, rolled up tight like
| those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I
unrolled it—and, by George! gentlemen all,
there was the letter!

The original letter !—I knew it by the
colour of the ink. The letter that was worth
five hundred pound to me! It was all I
could do to keep myself at first from throwing
my hat into the air, and hooraying like mad.
I had to take a chair and sit quiet in it for a
minute or two, before I could cool myself
down to my proper business level. I knew
that I was safely down again when I found
myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager
know that he had been done by the innocent
country attorney, after all.

It was not long before a nice little irritating
plan occurred to me. I tore a
blank leaf oat of my pocket-book, wrote
on it with my pencil " Change for a five
hundred pound note," folded up the paper,
tied the thread to it, poked it back into
the hiding-place, smoothed over the pile
of the carpet, and—as everybody in this place
guesses before I can tell them—bolted off to
Mr. Frank. He, in his turn, bolted off to
show the letter to the young lady, who first
certified to its genuineness, then dropped it
into the fire, and then took the initiative for
the first time since her marriage engagement,
by flinging her arms round his neck, kissing
him with all her might, and going into
hysterics in his arms. So at least Mr. Frank
told me; but that's not evidence. It is evidence,
however, that I saw them married with my own
eyes on the Wednesday; and that while they
went off in a carriage and four to spend the
honeymoon, I went off on my own legs to
open a credit at the Town and County Bank
with a five hundred pound note in my pocket.

As to Mr. Davager, I can tell you nothing
about him, except what is derived from
hearsay evidence, which is always unsatisfactory
evidence, even in a lawyer's mouth.

My boy, Tom, although twice kicked off by
Sam the pony, never lost hold of the bridle,
and kept his man in sight from first to last.
He had nothing particular to report, except
that on the way out to the Abbey Mr. Davager
had stopped at the public-house, had spoken
a word or two to his friend of the night
before, and had handed him what looked like
a bit of paper. This was no doubt a clue to
the thread that held the letter, to be used in
case of accidents, in every other respect
Mr. D. had ridden out and ridden in like an
ordinary sight-seer. Tom reported him to me
as having dismounted at the hotel about two.
At half-past, I locked my office door, nailed a
card under the knocker with " not at home
till to-morrow'' written on it, and retired to
a friend's house a mile or so out of the town
for the rest of the day.

Mr. Davager left the Gatliffe Arms that
night, with his best clothes on his back,