nd me have tried to get Experts, as they
call them, to interpret the cipher. The Experts have all failed. They
will declare, if they are called as witnesses, that the signs on the
paper are not according to any known rules, and are marks made at
random, meaning nothing.

"As for any statement, on my part, of the confession made to me, the law
refuses to hear it, except from the mouth of a witness. I might prove
that the ship's course was changed, contrary to my directions, after I
had gone below to rest, if I could find the man who was steering at the
time. God only knows where that man is.

"On the other hand, the errors of my past life, and my being in debt,
are circumstances dead against me. The lawyers seem to trust almost
entirely in a famous counsel, whom they have engaged to defend me. For
my own part, I go to my trial with little or no hope.

"If the verdict is guilty, and if you have any regard left for my
character, never rest until you have found somebody who can interpret
these cursed signs. Do for me, I say, what I cannot do for myself.
Recover the diamonds; and, when you restore them, show my owners this
letter.

"Kiss the children for me. I wish them, when they are old enough, to
read this defense of myself and to know that their father, who loved
them dearly, was an innocent man. My good brother will take care of you,
for my sake. I have done.

"RODERICK WESTERFIELD."

Mrs. Westerfield took up the cipher once more. She looked at it as if it
were a living thing that defied her.

"If I am able to read this gibberish," she decided, "I know what I'll do
with the diamonds!"

4.--The Garret.

One year exactly after the fatal day of the trial, Mrs. Westerfield
(secluded in the sanctuary of her bedroom) celebrated her release from
the obligation of wearing widow's weeds.

The conventional graduations in the outward expression of grief, which
lead from black clothing to gray, formed no part of this afflicted
lady's system of mourning. She laid her best blue walking dress and her
new bonnet to match on the bed, and admired them to her heart's content.
Her discarded garments were left on the floor. "Thank Heaven, I've done
with you!" she said--and kicked her rusty mourning out of the way as she
advanced to the fireplace to ring the bell.

"Where is my little boy?" she asked, when the landlady entered the room.

"He's down with me in the kitchen, ma'am; I'm teaching him to make a
plum cake for hims