y years. But times were bad, and I could make nothing of
it. He had ways of selling books that I could never understand, and I
soon saw that the decline and fall was setting in. So I have sold the
business for what it would fetch, and paid all that was owing, and I can
assure you that there is very little left. I have a nephew in London who
is something in the writing way himself. He used to live with us at
Thorley, and he is a dear dutiful boy, but he has had great troubles; so
I am going to keep his rooms for him, and take care of his linen, and
look after things a bit. I came up to-day to talk to him about it.

"Well, Miss Campion, the long and short of it is that as I was looking
over my husband's state documents, so to speak, which he had kept in a
private drawer, and which I had never found until I was packing up to
go, I found a paper signed by your respected father, less than three
months before my good man went to his saint's everlasting rest. You see,
miss, it is an undertaking to pay Samuel Bundlecombe the sum of twenty
pounds in six months from date, for value received, but owing to my
husband dying that sudden, and not telling me of his private drawer,
this paper was never presented."

Lettice took the paper and read it, feeling rather sick at heart, for
two or three reasons. If her father had made this promise she felt sure
that he would either have kept it or have put down the twenty pounds in
his list of debts. The list, indeed, which had been handed to Sydney was
in her own writing, and certainly the name of Bundlecombe was not
included in it. Was the omission her fault? If the money had never been
paid, that was what she would prefer to believe.

"I thought, miss," her visitor continued, "that there might be some
mention of this in Mr. Campion's papers, and, having heard that all the
accounts were properly settled, I made bold to bring it to your notice.
It is a kind of social contract, you see, and a solemn league and
covenant, as between man and man, which I am sure you would like to
settle if the means exist. Not but what it seems a shame to come to a
lady on such an errand; and I may tell you miss, fair and candid, that I
have been to Mr. Sydney Campion in the Temple, who does not admit that
he is liable. That may be law, or it may not, but I do consider that
this signature ought to be worth the money."

Lettice took the paper again. There could be no doubt as to its
genuineness, and the fact th