confounded political plots in which Platzoff was implicated--a matter of
moment no doubt to the writer, but of no earthly utility to anyone not
inoculated with such March-hare madness?

These were the questions that it behoved him to consider. At the end of
an hour he decided that the game was worth the candle: he would risk his
fifty guineas.

Taking one of Platzoff's horses, he rode without delay to the nearest
telegraph station. His message to the bookseller was as under:

"Buy the book, and send it down to me here by confidential messenger."

The next few day were days of suspense, of burning impatience. The
messenger arrived almost sooner than Ducie expected, bringing the book
with him. Ducie sighed as he signed the cheque for fifty guineas, with
ten pounds for expenses. That shabby calf-bound worm-eaten volume seemed
such a poor exchange for the precious slip of paper that had just left
his fingers. But what was done could not be undone, so he locked the
book away carefully in his desk and locked up his impatience with it
till nightfall.

He could not get away from Platzoff till close upon midnight. When he
got to his own room he bolted the door, and drew the curtains across the
windows, although he knew that it was impossible for anyone to spy on
him from without. Then he opened his desk, spread out the MS. before
him, and took up the volume. A calf-bound volume, with red edges, and
numbering five hundred pages. It was in English, and the title-page
stated it to be "_The Confessions of Parthenio the Mystic: A Romance_.
Translated from the Latin. With Annotations, and a Key to Sundrie Dark