PART XVI.




CHAPTER I.


"Please, sir, be this note for you?" asked the waiter.

"For me,--yes; it is my name."

I did not recognize the handwriting, and yet the note was from one whose
writing I had often seen. But formerly the writing was cramped, stiff,
perpendicular (a feigned hand, though I guessed not it was feigned); now
it was hasty, irregular, impatient, scarce a letter formed, scarce a
word that seemed finished, and yet strangely legible withal, as the hand
writing of a bold man almost always is. I opened the note listlessly,
and read,--

"I have watched for you all the morning. I saw her go. Well! I did not
throw myself under the hoofs of the horses. I write this in a public-
house, not far. Will you follow the bearer, and see once again the
outcast whom all the rest of the world will shun?"

Though I did not recognize the hand, there could be no doubt who was the
writer.

"The boy wants to know if there's an answer," said the waiter.