iable lying letter? It was posted--lurking in the pillar-box
round the corner, waiting to speed on its way to break the heart of the
girl, who had been willing to risk all, and count the world well lost
for the sake of him.

He seized his hat and ran down-stairs, taking the steps half a dozen at
a time. He met the boy coming up with the book. He passed as if he had
stepped over the top of him. The boy turned and gazed open-mouthed. The
gentlemen at the office were all of them funny upon occasion, but John
Arniston had never had the symptoms before.

"He's got a crisis!" said the boy to himself, clutching at an
explanation he had heard once given in the sub-editor's room.

For an hour John Arniston paced to and fro before that pillar-box,
timing the passing policeman, praying that the postman who came to clear
it might prove corruptible.

Would he never come? It appeared upon the white enamelled plate that the
box was to be cleared in an hour. But he seemed to have waited seven
hours in hell already. The policeman gazed at him suspiciously. A long
row of jewellers' shops was just round the corner, and he might be a
professional man of standing--in spite of the fur-collar of his
coat--with an immediate interest in jewellery.

The postman came at last. He was a young, alert, beardless man, who
whistled as he came. John Arniston was instantly beside him as he
stooped to unlock the little iron door.

"See here," he said eagerly, in a low voice, "I have made a mistake in
posting a letter. Two lives depend on it. I'll give you twenty pounds in
notes into your hand now, if you let me take back the letter at the
bottom of that pillar!"

"Sorry--can't do it, sir--more than my place is worth. Besides, how do I
know that you put in that letter? It may be a jewel letter from one of
them coves over there!"

And he jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

John Arniston could meet that argument.

"You can feel it," he said; "try if there is anything in it, coin or
jewels--you could tell, couldn't you?"

The man laughed.

"Might be notes, sir, like them in your hand--couldn't do it, indeed,
sir."

The devil leaped in the hot Scots blood of John Arniston.

He caught the kneeling servant of Her Majesty's noblest monopoly by the
throat, as he paused smiling with the door of the pillar-box open and
the light of the street-lamp falling on the single letter which lay
within. The clutch was no light one, and the man's life gurgle