aster Norris, and she will
bring you to me. If you have any friends at _Great Keynes_, for the love
you bear to them, come quickly."

Anthony turned the note over; it was unsigned, and undated. On his
inquiry further from the little girl, she said she knew nothing about the
writer; but that a gentleman had given her the note and told her to bring
it to Master Anthony Norris at Lambeth House; and that she was to take
him to a house that she knew in the city; she did not know the name of
the house, she said.

It was all very strange, thought Anthony, but evidently here was some one
who knew about him; the reference to Great Keynes made him think uneasily
of Isabel and wonder whether any harm had happened to her, or whether any
danger threatened. He stood musing with the note between his fingers, and
then told the child to go straight down to Paul's Cross and await him
there, and he would follow immediately. The child ran off, and Anthony
went round to the stables to get his horse. He rode straight down to the
city and put up his horse in the Bishop's stables, and then went round
with his riding-whip in his hand to Paul's Cross.

It was a dull miserable afternoon, beginning to close in with a fine rain
falling, and very few people were about; and he found the child crouched
up against the pulpit in an attempt to keep dry.

"Come," he said kindly, "I am ready; show me the way."

The child led him along by the Cathedral through the churchyard, and then
by winding passages, where Anthony kept a good look-out at the corners;
for a stab in the back was no uncommon thing for a well-dressed gentleman
off his guard. The houses overhead leaned so nearly together that the
darkening sky disappeared altogether now and then; at one spot Anthony
caught a glimpse high up of Bow Church spire; and after a corner or two
the child stopped before a doorway in a little flagged court.

"It is here," she said; and before Anthony could stop her she had slipped
away and disappeared through a passage. He looked at the house. It was a
tumble-down place; the door was heavily studded with nails, and gave a
most respectable air to the house: the leaded windows were just over his
head, and tightly closed. There was an air of mute discretion and silence
about the place that roused a vague discomfort in Anthony's mind; he
slipped his right hand into his belt and satisfied himself that the hilt
of his knife was within reach. Overhead the hanging windo