nst me twice or thrice. At
first it crossed me that he had been making free with the gift of that
afternoon, and that he had spent a portion of it for his own benefit,
rather than that of the prisoners, in whom he professed to take so great
an interest; but at the third or fourth lurch he gave it dawned upon me
that with his left hand he was groping for my right. Brunow was just a
step in front of us, and I held my hand out openly. The man slipped
into it a twisted scrap of paper, which I transferred carefully to my
waistcoat pocket.

"Here's the bridge, gentlemen," said Hinge, "and that's the inn right
before you, where the lights are."

"All right," I answered. "We can find the way now quite easily.
Good-night!"

"Good-night, gentlemen," he answered, and so turned away, while Brunow
and I footed it home in silence.

We occupied the same room, and I did not care to read whatever message
I might have received in his presence. He had proved so lukewarm in
the enterprise on which we had both embarked, and had now so apparently
forgotten all about it in dancing attendance on the Baroness Bonnar,
that I should have made no scruple of leaving him out of my councils
altogether. When he had half undressed I made some pretence of wanting
something from below, and read my missive in the kitchen. It was late,
and the room was empty.

I was not surprised to find I knew the handwriting, and that it was the
same that Brunow had shown me in his rooms on the night on which I had
first seen Miss Rossano.

This is what I read:

"The wretched prisoner, the Conte di Rossano, who has languished
for years in this fortress, asks, for the love of Heaven, that the
Englishman for whose hands this is meant will send a line to the
Contessa di Rossano, daughter of General Sir Arthur Rollinson, to assure
her that her husband still lives. If she should still live, and have
remarried, for pity find some means to let the writer know it."

I went to bed saying nothing of this, but held sleepless by it all
the night. With the idea which had come to me that afternoon of the
possibility of Hinge being set upon me to act as a spy and to discover
my intent so strong upon me that I could not shake it off, I tossed
and tumbled in a very sea of doubt and trouble. I was more than half
persuaded all along that this fancy was a mere chimera, and yet it took
such force in my mind. It was past two o'clock when the moon rose. I
got up noiselessly, filled