He changed his position, so as to interpose his person between the packet and any one in the room.
"Read the letter," he told the girl. "It is addressed to you."
She handed it to him. Her eyes were blinded with tears.
"Read it for me, please," she said.
He tore open the envelope and read the few lines scrawled upon a half sheet of notepaper. He read them very softly into her ear, but the words were audible enough to all of them.
"My dear Agnes,—
I have just discovered that there are some people on my track who mean mischief. I have a secret they want to rob me of. I seem to be followed about everywhere I go. What they want is the little packet in this envelope. I'm leaving it with you because I daren't carry it about with me. I've had two narrow escapes already.
"Now you'll never read this letter unless anything happens to me. I've made up my mind to sell this packet for what I can get for it, and take you with me out of the country. It'll be a matter of ten thousand quid, and I only wish I had my fingers on it now and was well out of the country. But this is where the rub comes in. If anything happens to me before I can bring this off, I'm hanged if I know what to tell you to do with the packet. It's worth its weight in banknotes to more persons than one, but there's a beastly risk in having anything to do with it. I think you'd better burn it! There's money in it, but I don't see how you could handle it. Burn it, Agnes. It's too
