ran over its two pages with
bewilderment growing in his face. He finished by throwing it down on
the table and exclaiming helplessly: "Well, I'll be damned!"

The first sheet, without beginning or ending, contained only a line in
Mrs. Athelstone's handwriting, reading: "I had to leave in such a hurry
that I missed seeing you."

There was not an intelligible word on the second sheet; it was simply a
succession of scrawls and puerile outline pictures, such as a child
might have drawn.

To Simpkins' first aggrieved feeling that his confidence had been
abused, the certainty that he had stumbled on something of importance
quickly succeeded. He concluded a second and more careful scrutiny of
the letter with the exclamation, "Cipher! all right, all right," and,
after a third, he jumped up excitedly and rushed off to Columbia
University.

An hour later, Professor Ashmore, whose well-known work on "Hieratic
Writings" is so widely accepted an authority on that fascinating
subject, looked across to Simpkins, who for some minutes had been
sitting quietly in a corner of his study, and observed dryly:

"This is a queer jumble of hieroglyphics and hieratic writing, and is
not, I should judge," and his eyes twinkled, "of any great antiquity."

"Quite right, Professor," Simpkins assented cheerfully. "The lady who
wrote it is interested in Egyptology, and is trying to have a little fun
with me."

"If I may judge from the letter, she seems to be interested in you as
well," the professor went on smilingly. "In fact, it appears to
be--ahem--a love-letter."

"Eh! What?" exclaimed Simpkins, suddenly serious, "Let's have it."

"Well, roughly, it goes something like this: 'My heart's dearest, my
sun, my Nile duck--the hours are days without thee, the days an aeon. The
gods be thanked that this separation is not for long. For apart from
thee I have no life. That thing that I have to do is about done. May the
gods guard thee and the all-mother protect thee. I embrace thee: I kiss
thine eyes and thy lips.' That's a fair translation, though one or two
of the hieroglyphics are susceptible of a slightly different rendering;
but the sense would not be materially affected by the change," the
Professor concluded.

His words fell on inattentive ears; for Simpkins was sitting stunned
under the revelation of the letter. Now that he had his story, he knew
that he had not wanted it.

But he roused himself when he became conscious that the profe