where the impression of a few lines of writing
appeared. I was about to put the blotting-
paper into my pocket after the pens, when
something in the look of the writing impressed
on it, stopped me.

Four blurred lines of not more, apparently,
than two or three words each, running out
one beyond another regularly from left to
right. Had the doctor been composing poetry
and blotting it in a violent hurry? At a first
glance, that was more than I could tell. The
order of the written letters, whatever they
might be, was reversed on the face of the
impression taken of them by the blotting-paper.
I turned to the other side of the leaf. The
order of the letters was now right, but the
letters themselves were sometimes too faintly
impressed, sometimes too much blurred
together to be legible. I held the leaf up to
the light, and there was a complete change:
the blurred letters grew clearer, the invisible
connecting lines appeared—I could read the
words, from first to last.

The writing must have been hurried, and
it had to all appearance been hurriedly dried
towards the corner of a perfectly clean leaf of
the blotting-paper. After twice reading, I
felt sure that I had made out correctly the
following address:

                   Miss James,
                              2, Zion Place,
                                            Crickgelly,
                                                      N. Wales.

It was hard, under the circumstances, to
form an opinion, as to the handwriting; but
I thought I could recognise the character of
some of the doctor's letters, even in the blotted
impression of them. Supposing I was right,
who was Miss James?

Some Welsh friend of the doctor's, unknown
to me ? Probably enough. But why not
Laura herself under an assumed name?
Having sent her from home to keep her
out of my way, it seemed next to a certainty
that her father would take all possible
measures to prevent my tracing her, and
would, therefore, as a common act of
precaution, forbid her to travel under her own
name. Crickgelly, North Wales, was
assuredly a very remote place to banish her
to; but then the doctor was not a man to
do things by halves: he knew the lengths to
which my cunning and resolution were capable
of carrying me; and he would have been
innocent indeed if he had hidden his daughter
from me in any place within reasonable
distance of Barkingham. Last, and not least
important, Miss James sounded in my ears
exactly like an assumed name. Was there
ever any woman absolutely and literally
named Miss James ? However I may have
altered my opinion on this point since, my
mind was not in a condition at that time to
admit the possible existence of any such
individual as a maiden James.  Before, therefore,
I had put the precious blotting-paper
into my pocket, I had satisfied myself that
my first duty, under all the circumstances,
was to shape my flight immediately to Crickgelly.
I could be certain of nothing—not
even of identifying the doctor's handwriting
by the impression on the blotting-paper. But
provided I kept clear of Barkingham, it was
all the same to me what part of the United
Kingdom I went to; and, in the absence of
any actual clue to Laura's place of residence,
there was consolation and encouragement even
in following an imaginary trace. My spirits
rose to their natural height as I struck into
the high road again, and beheld across the
level plain the smoke, chimneys, and church-
spires of a large manufacturing town. There
I saw the welcome promise of a coach—the
happy chance of making my journey to
Crickgelly easy and rapid from the very outset.

On my way to the town, I was reminded
by the staring of all the people I passed on
the road, of one important consideration
which I had hitherto most unaccountably
overlooked—the necessity of making some
radical change in my personal appearance.
I had no cause to dread the Bow Street
runners, for not one of them had seen me;
but I had the strongest possible reasons for
distrusting a meeting with my enemy Screw.
He would certainly be made use of by the
officers for the purpose of identifying the
companions whom he had betrayed; and I
had the best reasons in the world to believe
that he would rather assist in the taking of
me than in the capture of all the rest of the
coining gang put together—the doctor
himself not excepted. My present
costume was of the dandy sort—rather shabby,
but gay in colour and outrageous in
cut. I had not altered it for an
artisan's suit in the doctor's house, because I
never had any intention of staying there a
day longer than I could possibly help. The
apron in which I had wrapped the writing-
desk was the only approach I had made
towards wearing the honourable uniform of
the working man. Would it be wise now to
make my transformation complete, by adding
to the apron a velveteen jacket and a seal-
skin cap? No: my hands were too white,
my manners too inveterately gentlemanlike,
for an artisan disguise. It would be safer
to assume a serious character—to shave off
my whiskers, crop my hair, buy a modest hat
and umbrella, and dress entirely in black.
At the first slop-shop I encountered in the
suburbs of the town, I got a carpet-bag
and a clerical-looking suit. At the first
easy shaving-shop I passed, I had my hair
cropped and my whiskers taken off. After
that, I retreated again to the country—walked
back till I found a convenient hedge down
a lane off the high road, changed my
upper garments behind it, and emerged,
bashful, black, and reverend, with my cotton
umbrella tucked modestly under my arm,