g, big D, Nicky darling, but you see I never heard any
one call you plain, short Nick! I don't exactly see why she had to write
with you in the house, either, but you needn't be nervous. I'm not going
to use my cinch on you--not now, anyway! I've changed my mind about
telling Dudley. It won't do me any harm to keep something up my sleeve
against you, if ever I want to do anything you don't admire. It wasn't
the least bit of use for you to snatch that letter; I learned it off by
heart before you came in on me. And I can always threaten Dudley now
that I'll tell who Paulette Brown really is, if he tries to bully me
about any one I have a fancy for!"

Of course I knew she was thinking of Macartney. I didn't believe Dudley
would have cared if she had married him ten times over. But he might
have been making some unreasonable objection to Macartney, at that, for
all I knew.

"I don't care one straw about your knowing I was going to take Paulette
Brown out of this. But if you don't hold your tongue on it, I'll know
it, so you mind that," I observed with some heat. Yet I was easier. She
could not talk that night, anyhow, and she was welcome to come out with
her crazy lie about Paulette and myself, once Hutton was dead,--because
he and a snake would be all one to me, once I got my hands on him. After
that I had no qualms about being able to make Dudley see the truth
concerning that letter, and that it had been written to save his
gold,--and his life, likely enough! I let Marcia believe the name in the
letter was mine, and that Paulette had been going off with me. All I
wished was that she had been. I went off to my room and left Marcia
sitting over the dead fire,--not so triumphant as she'd meant to be, for
all the good face she put on it.

Paulette's letter had pretty well knocked out all the interest I had in
old Thompson's cards, but I got out the torn scrap of paper I'd put
away. There was nothing on it but what I'd read before: "For God's sake
search my cards--_my cards!_"--and it looked crazier than ever with the
things in my hand. The cards had been water-soaked and were bumpy and
blistery where Billy Jones had dried them, even though they were
flattened out again by the pressure of their tight case; but there was
nothing _to_ them, except that they were old Thompson's beyond a doubt.
If I had thought there might be writing on them there was not so much as
the scratch of a pencil. There seemed to be a card missing. I t