“P.S.—­Knowing that you must yet be weak with your late illness, I would have troubled Harold, rather than you, about this matter, but I am ignorant of his present whereabouts, while I know that you contemplated remaining a week or so in New York.  Write me about the ugly bite in the shoulder, from which I trust you are well recovered.  B.W.”

Arthur looked up from the letter, and beheld Philip Searle seated at the opposite side of the table.  He had entered while Arthur’s attention was absorbed in reading, and having glanced at the address of the envelope which lay upon the table, he recognized the hand of Beverly.  This prompted him to pause, and taking up one of the newspapers which were strewn about the table, he sat down, and while he appeared to read, glanced furtively at his vis-a-vis over the paper’s edge.  When his presence was noticed, he bowed, and Arthur, with a slight and stern inclination of the head, fixed his calm eye upon him with a searching severity that brought a flush of anger to Philip’s brow.

“That is Weems’ hand,” he muttered, inwardly, “and by that fellow’s look, I fancy that no less a person than myself is the subject of his epistle.”

Arthur had walked away, but, in his surprise at the unexpected presence of Searle, he had allowed the letter to remain upon the table.  No sooner had he passed out of the room, than Philip quietly but rapidly stretched his hand beneath the pile of scattered journals, and drew it toward him.  It required but an instant for his quick eye to catch the substance.  His face grew livid, and his teeth grated harshly with suppressed rage.

“We shall have a game of plot and counterplot before this ends, my man,” he muttered.

There were pen and paper on the table, and he wrote a few lines hastily, placed them in the envelope, and put Beverly’s letter in his pocket.  He had hardly finished when Arthur reentered the room, advanced rapidly to the table, and, with a look of relief, took up the envelope and its contents, and again left the room.  Philip’s lip curled beneath the black moustache with a smile of triumphant malice.

“Keep it safe in your pocket for a few hours, my gamecock, and my heiress to a beggar-girl, I’ll have stone walls between you and me.”

CHAPTER XII.

The evening was somewhat advanced, but Arthur determined at once to seek an interview with Miss Ayleff.  Hastily arranging his toilet, he walked briskly up Broadway, revolving in his mind a fit course for fulfilling his delicate errand.