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Next ht I had lain awakethinking; the other half I had drea fropossibilities of vague, undefined fear

Sleeping dreams have this difference over day dreams, that thepossibilities becoood andill, pleasure or pain, h all,however, there re toward belief, Ishould see Miss Anita--Marjory--again

Late in the afternoon I got a letter directed in a strange hand, fineand firm, with h of unevenness to set me at ease I am never quite happy with thewriter whose hand is exact, letter by letter, and word by word, and lineby line So ht, as I looked atthe letter lying beside my plate A hand that has no characteristics isthat of a person insipid; a hand that is tooand undependable Hereca the writing, had lookedat the signature, "Marjory Anita"

I hoped that no one at the table d'hote breakfast noticed me, for I feltthat I was red and pale by turns I laid the letter down, taking carethat the blank back page was uppermost; hat nonchalance I could Iwent on with my smoked haddie Then I put the letter in my pocket andwaited till I was in my own room, secure from interruption, before Iread it

That one should kiss a letter before reading it, is conceivable,especially when it is the first which one has received froirl heloves

It was not dated nor addressed A swift intuition told iven the date because she did not wish to give the address; theabsence of both was less marked than the presence of the one alone Itaddressed me as "Dear Mr Hunter" She knew my name, of course, for Ihad told it to her; it was on the envelope The body of the letter saidthat she was asked by Mrs Jack to convey her warreatservice rendered; to which she ventured to add the expression of her owngratitude That in the hurry and confusion of mind, consequent on theirunexpected position, they had both quite forgotten about the boat whichthey had hired and which had been lost That the owner of it would nodoubt be uneasy about it, and that they would both be grateful if Iwould see hies close to the harbour ofPort Erroll--and find out froht pay it to him, as well as a reasonable sum for the loss ofits use until he should have been able to procure another That MrsJack ventured to give him so much trouble, as Mr Hunter had beenalready so kind that she felt eoodnessAnd was "yours faithfully, 'Marjory Anita'" Of course there was apostscript--it was a woman's letter! It ran as follows:

"Have you deciphered those papers? I have been thinking over thes, and I am convinced they contain some secretYou must tell me all about them when I see you on Tuesday

M"

I fear that logic, as understood in books, had little to do with her plane of thoughton which rests the happiness of ht in the postscript which did not give ht of it and theoftener I read it thevoid in myheart, "Have you deciphered the papers"--the papers whose existence wasonly known to her and htful that we should know soover the of other things; thinkingof the wasphotographed not only on ly on s' there was one!!

To see her again; to hear her voice; to look in her eyes; to see herlips ht pass across thatlovely face, evoked by thoughts which we should hold in common; to touchher hand

I sat for a while like one in a rapturous dream, where one sees all thehopes of the heart fulfilled in completeness and endlessly And this wasall to be on Tuesday next--Only six days off!

I started impulsively and went to the oak chest which stood in thecorner of my room and took out the papers

After looking over them carefully I settled quietly down to a minuteexamination of them I felt instinctively that my mandate or co The letters I placedaside, for the present at any rate They were transparently si like the necessaryelaboration i, for such hadin my boyhood been a favourite amusement with me At one time I had beenan invalid for a considerable period and had taken from my father'slibrary a book by Bishop Wilkins, the brother-in-law of Oliver Croer" Herein were givenaccounts of many of the old , hidden e when the correspondence of aents was mainly conducted by such means This experience hadset , and ever after when in thecourse ofI

ca to thesubject I made a note of it I now looked over the papers to see if Icould find traces of any of theI had an idea

It was only a rudimentary idea, a sur into It was not any cause of undue pride to me, for itcame as a corollary to an established conclusion, rather than as a finepiece of reasoning froavethe period as the end of the sixteenth century, when one of the bestciphers of that time had been conceived, the "Biliteral Cipher" ofFrancis Bacon To this my attention had been directed by the workof John Wilkins and I had followed it out with great care As I wasfamiliar with the principle and ns of its existence; and this being so, I had at once stronghopes of being able to find the key to it The Biliteral cipher has asits great advantage, that it can be used in any ordinary writing, andthat its forms and methods are simply endless All that it requires inthe first instance is that there be soed on between thewriter and the reader of distinguishing between different forms of thesaraph on thesubject of the Biliteral cipher, in which I half suggested that possiblyBacon's idea ht be worked out more fully so that a fewer nu ot it; for by reading it over I ht which had already coht guide ures, words and symbols[1]