and paused before
that door. There was something familiar in his jaunty walk. Then the
faint glow of the lamp that was the indication of Harry San's real
business lit his pale face, and I knew that I had seen him last in
the cool evening at Interlaken, where Limehouse could not have lived a
moment, with the Jungfrau frowning down upon it.

"Enwright?" whispered Hughes.

"Not a doubt of it!" said I.

"Good!" he replied with fervor.

And now another man shuffled down the street and stood suddenly straight
and waiting before the colonel.

"Stay with him," said Hughes softly. "Don't let him get out of your
sight."

"Very good, sir," said the man; and, saluting, he passed on up the
stairs and whistled softly at that black depressing door.

The clock above the Millwall Docks was striking eleven as the colonel
and I caught a bus that should carry us back to a brighter, happier
London. Hughes spoke but seldom on that ride; and, repeating his advice
that I humor Inspector Bray on the morrow, he left me in the Strand.

So, my lady, here I sit in my study, waiting for that most important day
that is shortly to dawn. A full evening, you must admit. A woman with
the perfume of lilacs about her has threatened that unless I lie I shall
encounter consequences most unpleasant. A handsome young lieutenant has
begged me to tell that same lie for the honor of his family, and thus
condemn him to certain arrest and imprisonment. And I have been
down into hell, to-night and seen Archibald Enwright, of Interlaken,
conniving with the devil.

I presume I should go to bed; but I know I can not sleep. To-morrow
is to be, beyond all question, a red-letter day in the matter of the
captain's murder. And once again, against my will, I am down to play a
leading part.

The symphony of this great, gray, sad city is a mere hum in the distance
now, for it is nearly midnight. I shall mail this letter to you--post
it, I should say, since I am in London--and then I shall wait in my dim
rooms for the dawn. And as I wait I shall be thinking not always of
the captain, or his brother, or Hughes, or Limehouse and Enwright, but
often--oh, very often--of you.

In my last letter I scoffed at the idea of a great war. But when we
came back from Limehouse to-night the papers told us that the Kaiser had
signed the order to mobilize. Austria in; Serbia in; Germany, Russia
and France in. Hughes tells me that England is shortly to follow, and
I suppose there