he growled at last. “I suppose I can trust ye.”

“I suppose you can.”

Taking up his lantern he turned toward the door. “It ‘s growing late,” he said, with a most uncouth attempt to feign a guileless drowsiness. “I’ll to bed, captain, when I’ve locked up. Good-night to ye!”

He was gone, and the door was left unlocked. I could walk out of that gaol as I could have walked out of my house at Weyanoke. I was free, but should I take my freedom? Going back to the light of the fire I unfolded the paper and stared at it, turning its contents this way and that in my mind. The hand — but once had I seen her writing, and then it had been wrought with a shell upon firm sand. I could not judge if