bottom of that pillar!"

"Sorry--can't do it, sir--more than my place is worth. Besides, how do I
know that you put in that letter? It may be a jewel letter from one of
them coves over there!"

And he jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

John Arniston could meet that argument.

"You can feel it," he said; "try if there is anything in it, coin or
jewels--you could tell, couldn't you?"

The man laughed.

"Might be notes, sir, like them in your hand--couldn't do it, indeed,
sir."

The devil leaped in the hot Scots blood of John Arniston.

He caught the kneeling servant of Her Majesty's noblest monopoly by the
throat, as he paused smiling with the door of the pillar-box open and
the light of the street-lamp falling on the single letter which lay
within. The clutch was no light one, and the man's life gurgled in his
throat.

John Arniston snatched the letter, glanced once at the address. It was
his own. There was, indeed, no other. Hurriedly he thrust the four notes
into the hand of the half-choked postman. Then he turned and ran, for
the windows of many tall houses were spying upon him. He dived here and