red if he could possibly warn Beatrice between
the lines. There was yet a chance that Mary might not be the messenger.

Berrington racked his brains, but all to no purpose. He must leave the
matter to chance, after all. The speaking tube was going again, for the
whistle trilled shrilly. Sartoris was at the other end again; he seemed
to be on very good terms with himself.

"What about that letter?" he asked. "Have you changed your mind yet?
Solitary confinement worked sufficiently on your nerves yet? Not that
there's any hurry."

"What shall I gain if I write the letter?" Berrington asked.

"Gain! Why, nothing. The cards are all in my hands, and I play them as I
please. 'Yours not to reason why, yours not to make reply,' as Tennyson
says. For the present you are a prisoner, and for the present you stay
where you are. But one thing for your comfort. The sooner that letter is
written and dispatched, the sooner you will be free. We are not taking
all these risks for nothing, and our reward is close at hand now, I may
tell you. If you don't write that letter I shall have to forge it, and
that takes time. Also a longer detention of your handsome person. If you
consent to write that letter you will be free in eight and forty hours.
Don't address the envelope."

Berrington checked a desire to fling the suggestion back in the
speaker's teeth. It angered him to feel that he was in the power of this
little cripple, and that events in which he should have taken a hand
were proceeding without him. But it was no time for feeling of that
kind.

"I admit the defeat of the moment," he said. "I will write that letter
at once. But look to yourself when my time comes."

Sartoris laughed scornfully, as he could afford to do. Berrington could
hear him humming as he clapped in the whistle, and then silence fell
again. The letter was finished and sealed at length, and pushed under
the door as Sartoris had directed. A little later and there came the
sound of a footstep outside and a gentle scratching on the door panel.

"Is that you, Mary?" Berrington asked, instantly guessing who it was.
"Have you come for the letter?"

"Yes, I have," was the whispered reply. "My brother could not manage to
get up the stairs. He has one of his very bad attacks to-day. He has not
the least idea that I know anything. He said he dropped an unaddressed
letter on this landing last night, and he asked me to fetch it. I dare
not stay a minute."

"Don't go