I shall feel better in a few
minutes.'

Villiers picked up the fallen sketch and turned it over as Clarke had
done.

'You saw that?' he said. 'That's how I identified it as being a portrait
of Herbert's wife, or I should say his widow. How do you feel now?'

'Better, thanks, it was only a passing faintness. I don't think I quite
catch your meaning. What did you say enabled you to identify the
picture?'

'This word--"Helen"--written on the back. Didn't I tell you her name was
Helen? Yes; Helen Vaughan.'

Clarke groaned; there could be no shadow of doubt.

'Now, don't you agree with me,' said Villiers, 'that in the story I have
told you to-night, and in the part this woman plays in it, there are
some very strange points?'

'Yes, Villiers,' Clarke muttered, 'it is a strange story indeed; a
strange story indeed. You must give me time to think it over; I may be
able to help you or I may not. Must you be going now? Well, good-night,
Villiers, good-night. Come and see me in the course of a week.'

V

THE LETTER OF ADVICE

'Do you know, Austin,' said Villiers, as the two friends were pacing
sedately along Piccadilly one pleasant morning in May, 'do you know I am
convinced that what you told me about Paul Street and the Herberts is a
mere episode in an extraordinary history? I may as well confess to you
that when I asked you about Herbert a few months ago I had just seen
him.'

'You had seen him? Where?'

'He begged of me in the street one night. He was in the most pitiable
plight, but I recognized the man, and I got him to tell me his history,
or at least the outline of it. In brief, it amounted to this--he had
been ruined by his wife.'

'In what manner?'

'He would not tell me; he would only say that she had destroyed him,
body and soul. The man is dead now.'

'And what has become of his wife?'

'Ah, that's what I should like to know, and I mean to find her sooner or
later. I know a man named Clarke, a dry fellow, in fact a man of
business, but shrewd enough. You understand my meaning; not shrewd in
the mere business sense of the word, but a man who really knows
something about men and life. Well, I laid the case before him, and he
was evidently impressed. He said it needed consideration, and asked me
to come again in the course of a week. A few days later I received this
extraordinary letter.'

Austin took the envelope, drew out the letter, and read it curiously. It
ran as follows:--

'MY DEA