prang from his chair, and hastened into the inner room. Collins
and Blake were seated at a table there, labouring with a telegram in
cipher.

"What's the matter now?" demanded Collins, sharply, as he looked up and
saw Vernon's disordered face.

For answer, Vernon took from his pocket a folded paper and tossed it on
the table.

Collins picked it up, opened it, and read its contents.

"Well?" he said, looking up with a sigh of relief. "If this is the note
you wrote those Rushford girls, I must say I think you've done a mighty
wise thing to get it back. It was a dangerous thing to have lying
around. Have you had a quarrel?" and he grinned a little maliciously.

"Collins," said Vernon, coldly, "you have the poorest conception of good
taste of any man I know, and I know some awful bounders. But I won't
quarrel with you now, for you'll be grinning on the other side of that
ugly mouth of yours anyway in about a minute. Will you kindly examine
this piece of paper?" and he tore a leaf from his notebook.

"Be Bold, Be Bold"

Collins, biting his lips until they bled, took it and looked it over
with frowning and puzzled countenance.

"Well?" he asked, at last.

"The note I sent the Misses Rushford," said Vernon, quietly, "was
written on a leaf from the notebook, which I tore out just as I did that
one you have in your hand," and he sat down and stared out the window,
across the gray dunes and the gray sea to the gray horizon.

Collins, with compressed lips, held the two pieces of paper up to the
light and compared their texture. Then he got out a small pocket
magnifying glass and examined through it the writing on the note.

"It's a tracing," he said, at last, "and a mighty clever piece of work.
The paper, too, is very like."

"But it's not the same," put in Vernon.

"Oh, no, it's not the same."

"Do you mean this is a forgery?" burst out Blake, hoarsely, snatching
up the note and staring at it.

"Undoubtedly," answered Collins, coolly, but his face was very dark.
"The forger, clever as he was, could scarcely expect to be so fortunate
as to duplicate the paper. And then, of course, he couldn't foresee that
it would be turned over to you. But he did very well. Now let's have the
story."

"Miss Rushford had the note in her desk," said Vernon, shortly. "She
missed it last night and went to tell her sister of the theft. When she
returned to her room and began a systematic search, she found it slipped
among some not