hat you were not going to pull
that cord?"

Again he looked at his hands, and then, having pressed them for a
moment to his face, "It was marked very clearly," he answered, "in
THEIR hands."

Two or three days after this colloquy there had occurred to me in
London an idea--an ingenious and comfortable doubt. How was Laider to
be sure that his brain, recovering from concussion, had REMEMBERED what
happened in the course of that railway-journey? How was he to know
that his brain hadn't simply, in its abeyance, INVENTED all this for
him? It might be that he had never seen those signs in those hands.
Assuredly, here was a bright loophole. I had forthwith written to
Laider, pointing it out.

This was the letter which now, at my second visit, I had found
miserably pent on the letter-board. I remembered my promise to rescue
it. I arose from the retaining fireside, stretched my arms, yawned,
and went forth to fulfil my Christian purpose. There was no one in the
hall. The "shower" had at length ceased. The sun had positively come
out, and the front door had been thrown open in its honor. Everything
along the sea-front was beautifully gleaming, drying, shimmering. But
I was not to be diverted from my purpose. I went to the letter-board.
And--my letter was not there! Resourceful and plucky little thing--it
had escaped! I did hope it would not be captured and brought back.
Perhaps the alarm had already been raised by the tolling of that great
bell which warns the inhabitants for miles around that a letter has
broken loose from the letter-board. I had a vision of my envelop
skimming wildly along the coast-line, pursued by the old, but active,
waiter and a breathless pack of local worthies. I saw it outdistancing
them all, dodging past coast-guards, doubling on its tracks, leaping
breakwaters, unluckily injuring itself, losing speed, and at last, in a
splendor of desperation, taking to the open sea. But suddenly I had
another idea. Perhaps Laider had returned?

He had. I espied afar on the sands a form that was recognizably, by
the listless droop of it, his. I was glad and sorry--rather glad,
because he completed the scene of last year; and very sorry, because
this time we should be at each other's mercy: no restful silence and
liberty for either of us this time. Perhaps he had been told I was
here, and had gone out to avoid me while he yet could. Oh weak, weak!
Why palter? I put on my hat and coat, and ma