oux_, a solemn warning; came under the door a little
while ago, while I was off in a reverie; came by a spirit hand, maybe,
for I never heard a sound, but there lay the letter waiting to be
observed and perused." And the doctor laughed contemptuously, and
turned away to prepare for his drive. But Ray's face lengthened
perceptibly, and he took up the note with sudden eagerness, and read:

DOCTOR HEATH:--Take the advice of a friend and leave W---- for
a time; a plot is ripening against you, and your only safety lies in
your absence, for your enemies are powerful and have woven a chain
about you that will render you helpless, perhaps ruin you utterly.
TRUTH.

Lose no time, for the blow will soon fall.

The note was written in a cramped, reversed hand, and, after a hasty
perusal, Ray bent his head and scanned the pen strokes closely, then he
looked up with all the color gone from his face, and a strange gleam in
his eyes.

"How--how do you say this came, Heath?"

"I didn't say, for I don't know, my lad. It made its first appearance
lying just there," and the doctor pointed with his wisp broom, which he
had been vigorously applying to a brown overcoat, at the spot just
inside the door where he had first perceived the letter, and then
resumed his occupation without observing the trouble in Ray's face.
"Sensational, isn't it? but I can't think of quitting W---- just as it
begins to grow interesting."

"Then you take no stock in this warning?"

"Bah! why should I?"

"But if you should have secret foes?"

"Let them come on," quoted the doctor, theatrically; "bring along that
precious document, Ray, and come along yourself."

Ray Vandyck, still looking troubled and anxious, arose, and, with
lagging steps, followed his friend; as he noted with a new curiosity the
tall, lithe, well knit figure striding on before him, the handsome,
haughtily poised head, and the careless indifference of mien, he asked
himself:

"What can it be, this mystery and danger that surrounds him, that has
caused Constance Wardour to take such unprecedented measures to insure
his safety, and has wrung from Sybil Lamotte this strangely worded,
oddly and ineffectually disguised warning," for Ray, seeing not as the
world sees, but with the eyes of love, had recognized in the strange
scrawl the hand of the woman he had loved and lost.

"Heath _is_ in some peril," thought he, and then, with a rueful sigh,
"Oh! I would