great deal) could hardly have lectured the girl in the state she was in now. All I ventured to do was to keep her to the point--in the hope of something turning up which might be worth hearing.

`What do you want with Mr. Franklin Blake?' I asked.

`I want to see him.'

`For anything particular?'

`I have got a letter to give him.'

`From Rosanna Spearman?'

`Yes.'

`Sent to you in your own letter?'

`Yes.'

Was the darkness going to lift? Were all the discoveries that I was dying to make, coming and offering themselves to me of their own accord? I was obliged to wait a moment. Sergeant Cuff had left his infection behind him. Certain signs and tokens, personal to myself, warned me that the detective-fever was beginning to set in again.

`You can't see Mr. Franklin,' I said.

`I must, and will, see him.'

`He went to London last night.'

Limping Lucy looked me hard in the face, and saw that I was speaking the truth. Without a word more, she turned about again instantly towards Cobb's Hole.

`Stop!' I said. `I expect news of Mr. Franklin Blake to-morrow. Give me your letter, and I'll send it on to him by the post.'

Limping Lucy steadied herself on her crutch and looked back at me over her shoulder.

`I am to give it from my hands into his hands,' she said. `And I am to give it to him in no other way.'

`Shall I write, and tell him what you have said?'

`Tell him I hate him. And you will tell him the truth.'

`Yes, yes. But about the letter--?'

`If he wants the letter, he must come back here, and get it from Me.'

With those words she limped off on the way to Cobb's Hole. The detective-fever burnt up all my dignity on the spot. I followed her, and tried to make her talk. All in vain. It was my misfortune to be a man-- and Limping Lucy enjoyed disappointing me. Later in the day, I tried my luck with her mother. Good Mrs. Yolland could only cry, and recommend a drop of comfort out of the Dutch bottle. I found the fisherman on the beach. He said it was `a bad job,' and went on mending his net. Neither father nor mother knew more than I knew. Then one way left to try was the chance, which might come with the morning, of writing to Mr. Franklin Blake.