ctures and warnings
with each quarter's cheque. I told him so frankly, and I so annoyed
him even at the end that he gave me the money, saying he did not care
what I did with it. I certainly intend to stand by the arrangement I
made with him. That money was to be the last, and the last it shall
be."

"You are difficult," said Ingram.

"You must be indulgent."

Ingram lighted a new cigar and appeared lost in reflection a little
while.

"There is only one thing, then, I can suggest," he said at last.

"And that is?" asked Morgan, in a tone that clearly indicated his
belief that he was beyond all suggestions.

"You can be my ghost. Don't be alarmed--you must do some work, you
know, and that is the only work I can think of for you. I have to
refuse very many commissions. Try your hand at some of them and I'll
run over the work and sign. As I've said before, you've got brains
enough if you'll only use them in the right direction."

"You mean it for the best; but I could not be party to a fraud."

"How so? My business in life is to manufacture stories and plays for
the people. My signature merely guarantees the quality just as the
name of a maker on a pianoforte guarantees the instrument. But every
such maker employs others whose names do not appear in connection with
the finished product."

"The whole thing is impossible. Forgive me for ignoring your
arguments. I ought never to have troubled you with my miserable
concerns. It would, perhaps, have been better if I had never written
you this."

And Morgan took up his own letter from the table, morbidly fascinated
by it, and impelled to read again the words that had been wrung from
him five years before by his torturing sense of his position in life.

But, as he began to read, an odour he had been vaguely conscious of
inhaling all along was wafted very perceptibly to his nostrils. Then
he became aware that the letter was subtly scented.

An unreasoning anger came upon him.

"Some woman has had this in her possession," he exclaimed.

Ingram looked at him strangely, hesitated, then seemed finally to
comprehend.

"You are a veritable Lecoq," he said coolly.

Then that conception of Ingram that had before begun to hover in
Morgan's mind now forced itself upon him wholly. He had always
understood that the man had been inclined to take him somewhat as a
good joke, but this he had not minded so much, so long as he believed
that his personality and his aspirations