as
I make final adjustment of my affairs.

"HUGH MAINWARING."

"Ah," said Harold Mainwaring, thoughtfully, as he suddenly recalled
the morning when he had discovered Merrick and his assistant dragging
the lake at Fair Oaks, "I think I understand how this paper came
into Merrick's possession. It was evidently kept in the same
receptacle which held the will, but in my haste and excitement at
the discovery of the will I must have overlooked it. The box in
which these papers were kept afterwards fell into Merrick's hands,
and he must have found this."

"That solves one riddle, here is the other," and Miss Carleton
handed her lover a small note, covered with a fine, delicate
chirography whose perfectly formed characters revealed a mind
accustomed to the study of minute details and appreciative of their
significance. He opened it and read the following:

"MY DEAR MISS CARLETON:

"Pardon the liberty I take, but, thinking the enclosed bit of paper
might be of some possible assistance to one in whose success I
believe you are deeply interested, I send it herewith, as, for
obvious reasons, I deem this circuitous method of transmission
better than one more direct.

"As when taking leave of you on board the 'Campania,' so now, permit
me to assure you that if I can ever serve you as a friend, you have
but to command me.

"Most sincerely yours,
"C. D. MERRICK."

A smile of amusement lighted Harold Mainwaring's face as, glancing
up from the note, his eyes met those of Miss Carleton's with their
expression of perplexed inquiry.

"This is easily explained," he said; "do you remember the tall,
slender man whom we observed on board the 'Campania' as being rather
unsocial and taciturn?"

"Yes, I remember he rather annoyed me, for I fancied he concentrated
considerably more thought and attention upon us than the
circumstances called for."

"Which shows you were more observing than I. Such a thought never
entered my mind till I had been about ten days in London, when it
occurred to me that, considering the size of the town and the fact
that he and I were strangers, we met with astonishing frequency. I
have since learned that he was a detective sent over to London on
an important case, and being an intimate friend of Merrick's, the
latter, who, I am informed, was shadowing me pretty closely at the