`Steady, sir!' proceeded Betteredge. `I mean what I say. Rosanna Spearman left a sealed letter behind her--a letter addressed to you.'

`Where is it?'

`In the possession of a friend of hers, at Cobb's Hole. You must have heard tell, when you were here last, sir, of Limping Lucy--a lame girl with a crutch.'

`The fisherman's daughter?'

`The same, Mr. Franklin.'

`Why wasn't the letter forwarded to me?'

`Limping Lucy has a will of her own, sir. She wouldn't give it into any hands but yours. And you had left England before I could write to you.'

`Let's go back, Betteredge, and get it at once!'

`Too late, sir, to-night. They're great savers of candles along our coast; and they go to bed early at Cobb's Hole.'

`Nonsense! We might get there in half an hour.'

`You might, sir. And when you did get there, you would find the door locked.' He pointed to a light, glimmering below us; and, at the same moment, I heard through the stillness of the evening the bubbling of a stream. `There's the Farm, Mr. Franklin! Make yourself comfortable for to-night, and come to me to-morrow morning--if you'll be so kind?'

`You will go with me to the fisherman's cottage?'

`Yes, sir.'

`Early?'

`As early, Mr. Franklin, as you like.'

We descended the path that led to the Farm.


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