vowal or confession of the forgery?"

"Of course it did," says he. "Could the writer express his contrition
without making some such confession?"

"Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer," says I. "But never mind that; I'm
going to make a guess--a desperate guess, mind. Should I be altogether in
error if I thought that this letter had been stolen; and that the fingers
of Mr. Davager, of suspicious commercial celebrity, might possibly be the
fingers which took it?"

"That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand," cried Mr. Frank.

"How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to you?"

"He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had the
audacity----"

"Aha!" says I. "The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr. Davager."

"Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrubbery," Mr.
Frank goes on, "he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he
had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days
past. He then showed her--actually showed her--her unfortunate father's
letter; put into her hands another letter directed to me; bowed, and
walked off, leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror. If I had
only happened to be there at the time!" says Mr. Frank, shaking his fist
murderously in the air, by way of a finish.

"It's the greatest luck in the world that you were not," says I. "Have you
got that other letter?"

He handed it to me. It was so remarkably humorous and short, that I
remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in this way:

To FRANCIS GATLIFFE, ESQ., JUN.

SIR--I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell.
The price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to
whom you are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of
the nature of the letter, and the genuineness of the
autograph. If you refuse to deal, I shall send a copy to the
local paper, and shall wait on your highly respected father
with the original curiosity, on the afternoon of Tuesday
next. Having come down here on family business, I have put
up at the family hotel--being to be heard of at the Gatliffe
Arms. Your very obedient servant,

ALFRED DAVAGER.

"A clever fellow that," says I, putting the letter into my private drawer.

"Clever!" cries Mr. Frank, "he ought to be horsewhipped within an inch of
his life. I would have done it myself; but she made me promise, before sh