to your Hands, & no Others, a Message of the greatest Import.
Hearing you are but now set out for Upper Marlboro I beg of you to
return for half an Hour to the Coffee House. By so doing you will be
of service to a Friend, and confer a Favour upon y'r most ob'd't Humble
Servant,

"SILAS RIDGEWAY."

Our cavalcade had halted while I read, the ladies letting down the
glasses and leaning out in their concern lest some trouble had befallen
me or my grandfather. I answered them and bade them ride on, vowing that
I would overtake the coaches before they reached the Patuxent. Then I
turned Cynthia's head for town, with Hugo at my heels.

Patty, leaning from the window of the last coach, called out to me as I
passed. I waved my hand in return, and did not remember until long after
the anxiety in her eyes.

As I rode, and I rode hard, I pondered over the words of this letter. I
knew not this Mr. Ridgeway from the Lord Mayor of London; but I came to
the conclusion before I had reprised the gate that his message was from
Captain Daniel. And I greatly feared that some evil had befallen my good
friend. So I came to the Coffee House, and throwing my bridle to Hugo, I
ran in.

I found Mr. Ridgeway neither in the long room nor in the billiard room
nor the bar. Mr. Claude told me that indeed a man had arrived that
morning from the North, a spare person with a hooked nose and scant
hair, in a brown greatcoat with a torn cape. He had gone forth afoot
half an hour since. His messenger, a negro lad whose face I knew, was
in the stables with Hugo. He had never seen the stranger till he met
him that morning in State House Circle inquiring for Mr. Carvel, and had
been given a shilling to gallop after me. Impatient as I was to be gone,
I sat me down in the coffee room, thinking every minute the man must
return, and strongly apprehensive that Captain Daniel must be in some
grave predicament. That the favour he asked was of such a nature as I,
and not my grandfather, could best fulfil.

At length, about a quarter after noon, my man comes in with Mr. Claude
close behind him. I liked his looks less than his description, and the
moment I clapped eyes on him I knew that Captain Daniel had never chose
such a messenger.

"This is Mr. Richard Carvel," said Mr. Claude.

The fellow made me a low bow, which I scarcely returned.

"I am sure, 'sir," he began in a whining voice, "that I crave your
forbearance for this prodigious, stupid mistake I hav